Friday 12 January 2007

OLPC to include Australia?

From today's Age:

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project aims to put low-cost laptops into the hands of impoverished children in the developing world, but work is already underway to trial them among indigenous populations in Australia.


Proponent acknowledges one major hurdle:
refining the software to a point where it is intuitive and bug-free*, as it is unlikely there will be anyone living among the target populations with the technical expertise to troubleshoot configuration problems when they arise.


While providing affordable hardware to the hands of students may be necessary condition for participation in digital world, it is NEVER the sufficient condition to ensure effective use of the hardware. There are lots of promising uses of digital technology in learning, most educators are still stuggling to understand how digital technology can be fully integrated into k-12 schooling. Hope DEET can understand this and also put in matching initiatives to ensure any available hardware are put to good use.

*Is it possible that a software can be bug-free?

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