OLPC's "green machine"

I tried to keep this short, as I’m sure everyone’s crazy busy with finals.  Have fun debating Dvorak in the comments!

Nicholas Negroponte interview with Riz Khan

• Give One, Get One—Every time someone bought a Green Machine, one would be donated to a child in another country.
• Wanted to connect children around the world—felt that the industry would never create a low-cost laptop itself
• Figures that children will be able to immediately pick up the skills necessary to work the computers
• Doesn’t want people to think of it as giving children laptops, but an education.  “An inoculation against ignorance”
• Thinks that kids who go online are more engaged and more interesting off-line—will allow more interaction
• Laptops are child-friendly:  they convert into a games machine, works in the sunlight, low-power (with a hand crank), have antenna technology that creates a network
• The hope is that the teacher/student relationship will improve when students can teach the teachers
• Open source community helped them to localize the tech, including keyboards for each country
• Give one get one—wants people to fund other people.  Faster than waiting for countries to announce funding

Map of internet use by country

One Laptop, One Child Doesn’t Change the World

John Dvorak

Note:  I might be the only one, but when I click the link it takes me to an article with the correct title, but a completely unrelated story.  I did some googling and found a copy of it here (or at least what I’m hoping is a copy).

• The OLPC program lets people feel like they’re doing something helpful, but really doesn’t do much.
• Since so many people are living in poverty, he views it as a “let them eat cake” solution
• Characterizes the internet as “spam-ridden Information Super Ad-way laced with Nigerian scams, hoaxes, porn, blogs, wikis, spam, urban folklore, misinformation, sites selling junk from China, bomb-making instructions, jihad initiatives, communist propaganda, Nazi propaganda, exhortations, movie clips of cats playing the piano, advertising, advertising, and more advertising”, conveniently ignoring… basically everything else.
• Notes that laptops aren’t much good without a classroom (which is debatable) and literacy (which is actually a pretty good point)
• Takes to task the notion that once kids in Africa have laptops, the digital divide will be fixed

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the “movie clips of cats playing piano” that Dvorak was so dismissive of… Play him off, Keyboard Cat!

Give me rice, but give me a laptop too

Bill Thompson

• Things have not gone as well as initially hoped for with the laptops:  they cost more to make than expected, not very many governments are buying into the program, and Microsoft and Intel keep trying to ruin things
• Feels that Dvorak’s critique of OLPC is overly simplistic and potentially damaging, as he has so much influence
• Access to the internet will make it easier for developing nations to get other necessary goods and services
• Agrees that there are and will be problems with the program, but that’s no reason not to try

Internet Traffic Map

Internet Galaxy Meets Postnational Constellation:  Prospects for Political Solidarity After the Internet

Catherine Frost

• Likens the role of the internet to the role of print in the spread of nationalism in Anderson’s Imagined Communities
• In order to have a postnationalist society, we must have a common political culture.  Some think that the internet can help spread this sense of global solidarity.  Frost addresses why this is problematic in four ways:
  • Conceptions of Community:  there are limits to the ability to create communities on the internet.  First of all, the relative ease of anonymity means that it is hard to build solidarity with others, since identities are ever-changing.  Anonymity also encourages deviant behavior.  The internet is thus unlikely to establish the mutual trust necessary to build a common political culture.
  • Systems of Meaning:  In the building of nationalisms, a shared system of meaning (usually a religion) is necessary.  This doesn’t really happen on the internet, largely because there are no boundaries.  While there is the potential for a collective to exist, the increasing commercialization on the internet makes this unlikely.
  • Political Engagement:  While the internet has let some people engage in more political discussion, there’s still that pesky digital divide.  It therefore does not qualify as a new public sphere.  Also, useful political discussion requires sacrifice and mature discussion.  Obviously, anonymous online identities aren’t all that effective in this realm.
  • Social Inclusivity:  While cohesive networks might not evolve on the internet, it could widen social divides between those who have access and those who don’t, making a tighter-knit political community of the disadvantaged.  Um, yay?
  • Conclusions:  An internet-led postnational community is unlikely.  If social change does occur, it’s likely to happen through those who don’t have as much access, not the new media elites.

... I don't even know.

Recommended Reading

OLPC XO-2 cancelled

There were plans to make a dual-screen e-book/netbook, but now they’re making a tablet instead.  OLPC was going to be basically the only company making the e-book/netbook thing, but are now going for something more traditional.  Honestly, I don’t really even understand the concept.  But it’s dead now, anyway.

Also, while they’ve fulfilled all their orders and are doing all right, sales have not been amazing.  But not horrible either.Similar Posts:

• Access is only the beginning (7) |
• Bookers Facebook fans weigh in (8) |
• Accessing the Mashup (2) |

This is it – this will be the last brief in the semester.

Wiki Marathon

For week I would like you to work on the wiki and make sure the structure and content of the wiki together with your contribution pages reflects the hard personal and collective work you’ve been doing. I want you guys to do more work earlier and not wait for the last moment on this as collaboration is hard and the process should be given some time to take shape and materialize. Please make sure you make most of your contributions by Saturday and devote Sunday-Tuesday to edit, structure and further substantiate the collective work of the class.

Next week’s reading will focus on the potential (?) of Postnationalism presented by the networked public sphere and on the digital divide through the case study of the OLPC.

Required Reading:

• Nicolas Negroponte, “Interview with Riz Khan” Al-Jazeera October 2007
  

  Click here to view the embedded video.

  (by the way, Riz’s show is recommended in general)
• One Laptop per Child Doesn’t Change the World / John C. Dvorak
• Give me rice, but give me a laptop too / Bill Thompson
• Frost, Catherine “Internet Galaxy Meets Postnational Constellation: Prospects for Political Solidarity After the Internet” (a pdf will be emailed to you, please do not share, sorry)
• Sara’s summary + your comment

Recommended Reading:

• (optional, just to get a more updated note on the OLPC) OLPC XO-2 cancelled: tablet will be developed next / Jack Schofield, Guardian (Nov 4th, 09)
• The OLPC wikipedia page, kept pretty updated with the project’s history and current state.

Sara:

• Read the essay & articles and view the presentation
• Optionally Highlight and annotate the reading to help its accessibility for the rest of you.
• Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday 4pm, ideally running some threads between them.
• Be prepared to present the article and lead the discussion in class.
• Think of questions to lead off the discussion
• Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.

Similar Posts:

• Building communities or creating a divide?: The Digital Divide and Postnationalism (11) |
• Concluding the 4th travelogue and this evolutionary step (0) |
• Representation, Simulation, Fun & filthy rich media (0) |

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Still trying hard to post this.. (4) |
• The Meta Mashup (5) |
• ““Everything that come around go 3-6-0, longtitude and latitude, it’s all in the attitude…” (3) |

MIT Media Lab student Randal Pinkett used this quote in his dissertation on a community network site he built in Boston for the Camfield Estates, a public housing community in Boston. This quote is central to emphasizing the importance of what role community network sites can play in helping its members turn to each other in times of need rather than appealing to service institutions. In a time when many are struggling to make ends meet, the need for establishing micro bartering economies has become more pressing, and the ability for a social networking site to make community resource more visible is an important step in this direction.

In this travelogue I began by both reading Pinkett’s dissertation while exploring the social networking site neighbors for neighbors. NfN started two years ago serving primarily the town of Jamaica Plain in the City of Boston. Since then it has expanded to include sections for all the other towns in Boston. I decided to begin my investigation by looking at the sites mission statement. This gave me an idea of how to determine how well the site was meeting its goals.
(see below image for the site goals)

Joseph Porcelli, the networks founder and lead editor posted a statement that seems to capture the mission of the site.

In this post he emphasizes the power of the community to cast their gaze around them rather than above when in search of support. The idea behind such a statement is to set a tone for the culture he is trying to create for this network. His goal is to connect those who have something to offer with those who have a particular need. By doing this, the network NfN is promoting a self sufficient community.

All of this sounds fantastic, but what are the realities of NfN? How well does it meet its mission? With both the networks mission statement and the post by the founder in mind, I set out by exploring two communities that I was most familiar with, the towns of Roxbury and Dorchester. Each towns page has the following categories: Invite, My Page, Members, Photos, Videos, Forum, Events, Groups, and Blogs. Below the categories one finds a “start here” section that provides some context to the categories. This is helpful if someone is new to the site and unsure as to what the function of a section might be.

In order to get an idea of the activity within these networks, I decided to focus on the following sections: Forums, Groups, and Blogs. When I began my search however, I found that the two towns that I picked were relatively new to the network and thus had a low number of members. Roxbury had 17 while Dorchester had 98. I explored my designated sections in the respective networks but saw minimal participation. Given that NfN had only recently launched these sites, I decided to move my focus onto Jamaica Plain, the town that was the original network for NfN and boasts close to 1500 members. Despite the need to shift focus, I did not ignore the fact that my original target sites had a low number of members. While I do not have extensive research and data to answer the question of why this was the case, I was able to obtain some demographic data on NfN users in JP, Boston census information,  as well as cull some information out of Pinkett’s dissertation that I think may lead to some answers that fall in line with the digital divide argument.

In his dissertation, Pinkett cites data on the technology consumption habits between caucasian’s and minorities.

“Whites outspend minorities in the product categories of personal computers, laptop computers, Internet access, cable modems, and ISDN telephone lines (Strategy Research Corporation, 2001).”

Combine this point with the 2000 census data from the City of Boston website that shows Roxbury as having  5% Non-Hispanic White and 63% Black or African-American while Jamaica Plain is 50% Non-Hispanic White, 17% Black or African-American, and it seems like we might have our answer, especially when user data from the Jamaica Plain network shows that over 90% of its users are listed as caucasian.
To this point of consumption habits, Pinkett says,

“when searching for effective strategies to foster engagement with information and communications technology, it is incumbent upon designers and planners to ensure that the infrastructure is well suited to the interests of end-users.” p.60

Pinkett not only encourages designers to be aware of this fact, he also says that users should be involved with the design process itself. While this is a worthwhile area to explore, I will hold off on this for now and stick to my focus on examining the current use of NfN. What I will say is that as a former teacher in the Boston Public Schools, I know that almost all of my students had cell phones and a good number of them had internet access, so perhaps creating the site in such a way where it is easily navigable on a cell phone browser might be a good start.

Coming back to the examination of the network layout, I began by looking at the Groups. With so many members, the JP network was able to create groups that focus on particular neighborhoods. This is especially helpful for organizing around issues that may affect a small area. An example of this hyper-local organizing through the network is seen in the following example:  Since the beginning of the summer, JP has experienced a a rash of burglaries. In response to this, the JP network has become a hub for organizing to contend with this. In the Central Jamaica Plain group, Joseph Porcelli, the sites founder, posts information about a break in and sets up a meeting time for members of the particular neighborhood at 1pm the next day to discuss how to deal with the crimes. In my communication with Joseph, 14 people showed up the next day and the outcome of the meeting produced the following action items.

Here we have what I find to be a solid example of effective organizing between citizens to take community matters into their own hands as opposed to only relying on the police.

The forums feature 6 categories, one of which is classified as community resources and another classified as skill share/tool share. In the skill share/tool-share category I found an example that related to the quote that kicked off the post. Here we have an individual who is looking for help with small jobs around the house. Another example worth noting is when a user posted a request for help with their vegetable garden in exchange for providing the person who helps with some of the vegetables that come out of the garden. In my opinion this is a decent example of supporting a bartering economy that is especially helpful in these challenging economic times.

Finally, looking at Blogs, my attention was caught by one post that included a video that teaches people how to use the new recycling bins provided by the city.

While I found some decent examples of organizing and resource sharing taking place on the network, I did find that many requests for information or blog posts in general had no responses . I asked Joseph Porcelli whether or not he has information about communications generated from these posts taking place off site, as in users emailing each other directly. I am waiting on his reply.

Another point worth noting is that the three sections I focused on, forums, blogs, and groups, all seemed to have content that seemed to be placed in the wrong section (e.g. what should be a blog post found itself in the forums). This can be a problem for both the user who is posting information or looking for information. My feeling is that this is a cultural issue on the network that will be worked out in time as more users take ownership and start to establish stricter guidelines that will help with the networks efficiency of information organization.

In my next post I hope to feature interviews with some of the sites users as well as explore the issue of how to build up site use in forums, blogs, groups and network membership for those towns with a low number of members.

Special Thanks to Joseph Porcelli for taking time to answer my questions!!Similar Posts:

• Party Starter (4) |
• Refining the Social and Techincal Design of NfN (3) |
• Do community based social networks improve visibility of resources and civic engagement? (1) |