"Its not a laptop project. Its an education project".

I may have gotten beaten to it, but I am going to write about it anyway. That is, the topic of Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child Vision.

Nicholas Negroponte's endeavour to give every child a laptop has the enormous ability to polarise opinion. It can either be seen as a noble cause, or an equally unimpressive one.

In short, Negroponte makes the compelling case for the distribution of laptops to the world's poorest children in the aim that it will improve education and begin to close the increasingly large gap between the first and third world. On the websites (sickeningly sweet) mission statement, it is suggested that with the use of laptops, children may 'become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future'.

At first, it seems incomprehensible to think that a child without access to clean water and clothing could still enjoy a laptop that is engineered to be readable in direct sunlight. This is where most of the criticism lies.

However, Negroponte is at pains to point out that "This is not a laptop project. Its an education project".

And education, is vital to sustained and longer term poverty reduction. The project does not suggest that laptops are more essential then food, shelter and water. There are other efforts worldwide that endeavour to help out these important issues. The project is focused and specific in attempting to simply trying to make a better future- by improving education.

As new media and technology becomes more and more ubiquitous, digital natives will probably be more and more likely to make up the majority of the population. Already behind, equipping children in developing nations with laptops is also another way in which to ensure that the gap with the western world will not widen.

Before, I sound like Negroponte's biggest fan, I will say that I am undecided on whether the One Laptop Per Child vision is wholly beneficial and the best use of resources. There are many limitations and questions and issues that need to be addressed, such as how the success of the project is measured, the environmental effects of the laptops and the imposition of Western values.

However, I do applaud the project's moral intentions to make the world, and future, a better place, and most significantly, the integration of technology to effect these changes. The amount of thought and research that has gone into the project must be commended, and the determination and relative success should also be recognised. Considering how far $100 can get you these days, spending $100 on a laptop that may improve the education and life of a child does not seem like a bad way to part with money.

Laptop has been eaten. Now what?

Are you weirded out by the fact that an 11 year old owns a cell phone? So by that same train of thought you would be just as weirded out by the concept of One Laptop Per Child. As I was reading the reading (LOL) for this week, I found this concept by Negroponte very bizarre and slightly unnerving.

This could severely impact the social and cultural aspect of a child’s life especially for children growing up in Third World Countries who are not used to a lot of technology in everyday life. I grew up in the Philippines so I know what it’s like to not have technology at the press of your fingertips and we used to make up our own games to pass times. As for education, I believe schooling is the most effective tool for a child’s learning and so I agree with Brian Winston’s stance that is slightly against Negroponte’s vision.

Though if you were to look at it from a different perspective, this could be just Nicholas Negroponte’s way of trying to help shape the world through technology. As there are a lot of organizations out there, such as World Vision (http://www.wvi.org) and Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.org) , who help children that are worse off with basic necessities like water, food, shelter and schooling.

You can’t help but be slightly cynical and critical about Negroponte’s vision for the 2 billion children out there in the world. Questions arise on how are these Third World Countries are going to find a power source to run these laptops let alone finding a decent and constant water supply. I think for electricity is my biggest issue with these laptops. Winston quoted Bill Gates in the reading in which Gates was more worried about how certain countries were going to supply the energy as a normal laptop would take about 20-30 watts to run within a few minutes and a child in a Third World Country could only handle 5-6 watts. It just seems odd to supply kids between the ages of 6-12 (I mean c’mon SIX-YEARS-OLD) with technology laden instruments and expect them to learn this way. Maybe I’m a little old fashioned but a lot of people in tutorial found this solution very odd indeed.

If I had to make the world a better place, laptops for kids would not be my ideal solution. Even that phrase, laptops for kids, and associating laptops with children boogles my mind!