I think the points brought up on the sociological images blog (thanks for the link, Sara!) are a really good read and a good example of a decent discussion on the topic, aside from the asinine depiction of course!

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, anyone?

I giggled out loud @ allison’s citation from his 1984 article: “The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.”

Anyhow, I don’t know what Dvorak expected to gain (aside from publicity) by attacking a non-profit. And I think his insinuation that anybody is hoping to benefit from advertising to these children is ridiculous. Sponsoring companies might gain brand sympathy form “us”, but who’s going to argue being that it’s a noble cause?

The ‘net seems to be evolving in Frost’s image of a post-nationalist society. I see anonymity being continuously phased out or at least reduced. Perhaps we’ll one day have universal identifiers such as Lessig’s ID cards – or we’ll simply have our own personal ipv6 address. Regardless, through cyberspace, we’re able to transcend physical barriers, which makes the post-national collective/imagined community possible. Can you imagine an environment where collectives/communities are dependent on virtual affiliation rather than physical space? I feel a science fiction novel coming on.

The web extends the lucidity of imagined communities and the ideology we’re capable of sharing – much like newspapers did many years ago. I think that during our lifetimes however, we’ll always be subordinate to physical borders. It will interesting to see the conflicts that arise with post-nationalism in a nationalist world – I wonder how many of us will one day be called “terrorists”…?

I actually came into contact with the OLPC back before they actually launched and almost contemplated getting one myself, but never did. Never the less, having also experienced being in these areas where kids need learning supplies, no matter what they are, it’s hard to say that they are in the wrong with what they’re doing. We also have to keep in the mind the adaptability of a child’s brain. Just because the internet isn’t in their language doesn’t mean they aren’t going to learn the language or at least find a way to make this machine beneficial to their own growth.

As a somewhat random example and maybe he has slightly different circumstances than some of the kids receiving the OLPCs but this guy saw a picture of a windmill in a book and found out it could produce electricity and so he just went and made one for himself.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-7-2009/william-kamkwamba

I completely agree with Thompson that even though there are some negatives holding the program back, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least make an attempt.

+Some might have noticed by now that I geek out on what social media technologies are doing to the way we view credibility in the U.S. (for starters). We talked about it early in the semester in the context of news (e.g. the weight of the NYT is challenged by Google/news aggregators). I noticed it again last week in the context of higher education (e.g. many people think the traditional credential system is less relevant in a networked world). And here, in the form of a child’s laptop, we have value shifts afoot. Is the digital divide smaller or wider because of OLPC and the tools it enables? The optimist in me says smaller. Is this important to poor people? The optimist in me says yes, although I can’t begin to answer why because I’m not poor.

+Anu (and perhaps others): I did not work on the program (and Rob is always respectful of client confidentiality so he will not answer #6), but as much as I love to tout the power of PR, I would say the narrative is not, in fact, coming from Microsoft. That ‘bad guy’ narrative Rob speaks of is present in almost every story (news or otherwise). Microsoft, nor any company of any stripe, need not insert it or manipulate it because the authors (in this case, the press) are practically wired (ha) to tell stories in this manner.

+I’m curious if the class on the whole thinks non-profits are inherently better at social responsibility? Without Microsoft’s capitalist ways, there would be no Gates Foundation–an organization that most of us would agree does really important social work. I’m not advocating the opposite–that a for profit company is more effective–but I am cheering for a frothy mixture of for and not for profit.

From my experience working at both non-profit and for-profit ventures, in relation to theater (a wonderful kind of activism), I could not choose between the two models based on inputs or outputs. As an employee, both models had terrible pain points and groovy joys. As for the theater we produced, both forms (in-house vs. bus & truck outsourced), had similar pros and cons. To relate this back to the readings, OLPC and ideas like it will be more effective, regardless of business model/partners, if education remains the North star. And yes, education can be profitable, just ask NYU .

I am not surprised at the backlash surrounding teh OLPC program. The technology and computer industry are natrious for skimming and pricing things at a high point to try to get those technocrats to buy the hottest newest technology before everyone else. It just makes buisness sense that they would try to quash the program.

Media literacy is a huge issue that was debated long before anyone was sending laptops transnationally. Technology and its integration into the American classroom is still a huge issue. Would Dvorak argue against giving American impoverished children in rural areas laptops, or would that be patronizing too? I think it is natural that media literacy and integration into the educational structure would be even more difficult in less developed countries. But it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try. Especially since laptops can deliver information, a powerful tool (teach a man to fish and all that).

I think that Dvorak is a bit contradictory when he says that the OLPC program was providing impoverished kids with advertising machines and then stating that they can’t understand the majority of the internet because it isn’t in their native language.

1) OLPC is a non-profit, so whatever “mileage” was accrued by having a cute product is still being employed for a social cause. That’s key. As for governments lifting off the hype but not following through with purchases– a government even validating the need to be digitally aware is a powerful social message. And we can’t discount how much the financial outlook of every country in the world has changed in the past two years. Much richer nations also rethought and halted major investiture.

6) I think the “narrative” is coming from Mircosoft. Once again, OLPC is a non-profit. Negroponte invited others to knock off OLPC’s laptop – they just want them out there, affordably. Microsoft is talking out of two sides of its mouth, acknowledging a digital divide while not being genuinely committed to addressing it in the way OLPC is. MS knew their low-cost laptop would undercut OLPC’s sales, but profits potential trumped social responsibility or activism, because Microsoft is very decidedly not a non-profit.

Re: Dvorak and the assertion that digital familiarity helps no one in impoverished countries. Um, has he heard of Bangalore?

Dvorak’s argument that OLPC is easy to agree with if you’re thinking about the program on a shallow surface. Yes, basic needs are more important than technology. Shallowly, his argument makes sense. But dig deeper, and OLPC’s mission is an important one. Dvorak notes that the laptops aren’t of use without literacy, but I imagine that these laptops could be efficient tools to teach literacy.

Since we read Anderson and Habermas in Core this semester, Frost’s article was really interesting to me. It was kind of an updated version of both. It also makes me think back to all of the discussions we’ve had on echo chambers. Her theory that “under conditions of Internet anonymity, deviant behavior is not simply common, it actually becomes the norm” struck me. She said this inhibits social connections, but I wonder how this differs from offline communities? I think anonymity could also have a positive effect on social relations, as people are often more willing to connect with others and express themselves more honestly anonymously.

class will take place: same place, same time

see you then

1) Don’t underestimate the power of cute green Fisher-Price technology to take a complex issue (such as providing technology access to students in developing geographies) and make it accessible to the media. OLPC got a lot of mileage out of pictures of photogenic third world kids holding up the OLPC. So did many government officials (who then didn’t do anything to follow up on their handshake deals with NN).

2) Infrastructure matters. Distribution into remote locales, spare parts, training, freshened learning content in local languages, satellite broadband – the challenge of providing sustainable tech access starts with getting the child the laptop. It doesn’t end with it.

3) Dvorak is a professional contrarian. He’s not the high-water mark for OLPC skeptics. That position is held by Fake Steve Jobs (Newsweek writer Dan Lyons). A classic rant here: http://tinyurl.com/yaucfex

4) Nicholas N. deserves all credit for driving the tech industry to pay attention to a real problem and in shaping the narrative for a sustained period of time.

5) A great resource for reviewing the lifecycle of the OLPC story is Wayan Vota’s OLPCNews blog at http://www.olpcnews.com/archives.html . Wayan is a fan of the OLPC but he is also intellectually honest, so he’s not above pointing out the unsupportable hype.

6) Having a ‘bad guy’ has been an important part of sustaining the OLPC narrative (and energizing supporters). Look for how it was used against Intel in the 60 Minutes piece on OLPC in May 2007.

I also enjoyed Frost’s article. Again, Dvorak seems to be saying that one reason not to provide laptops to impoverished children is to “protect” them from excessive advertising and all of the bad things about the internet. As Frost explains, the Internet can create solidarity by highlighting what a group is missing out on, and while this may not be what Negroponte has in mind with the program, it may be the reality that arises from the program – spurring technological development and solidarity in the developing world.

I don’t like the generalization that kids are little digi gurus, but I do like Tapscott’s idea that instructors should strive for a more “back and forth” approach within the classroom, rather than just lecturing, and that education should be tailored to individual learning styles. Having students choose what they want to learn about, however, is slightly ridiculous.

I’ve also had the experience where I’ve been in a class with an awesome professor who never said anything. I always get frustrated at that, if only because if there’s only one person in the room getting paid to teach, I would like them to actually teach me something, not the idiot from my dorm. But I’ve also had the experience of walking into a room, getting talked at for two hours, and then walking out. I don’t learn anything there either. But if we combine the two methods (much like happens in this class), it’s actually good!

So I think any sort of “everything about education is wrong!”/”we should never try new things ever” reaction is fundamentally flawed. Both authors do have their points–the university system is flawed as Tapscott says, and it is important to have structure, as Sunstein says–but going too far in either way will only make things worse.