Preview Of The $100 Laptop 304
cynical writes "Harvard's Ethan Zuckerman, founder of GeekCorps and Global Voices, got a chance last week to drop in on Nicholas Negroponte and get a preview of the $100 laptop Negroponte has designed for students in the developing world. Zuckerman talks about both its hardware and the One Laptop Per Child project, and asks the readers for suggestions for innovative ways the $100 laptop can be used." From the article: "The mockup I saw was about the size of a large paperback book. There's a stiff rubber gasket around the edge of the machine, which can double as a stand. The keyboard on the mockup was detachable, but will probably fold out on a hinge ... Two trackballs, surrounded by four way buttons, on each side of the screen act as controls, and function keys on the back act as additional buttons.)" We've previously reported on this device here on Slashdot.
I want one of these for my kids (Score:4, Interesting)
Swatch them! (Score:3, Interesting)
Have Swatch or some other design-centric company make a dozen glitzy versions a year. Sell them for $250, with a big trade-in allowance on used units. The store and designers would get a cut; the rest would go to buy units for distribution to poor kids.
Some things that the articles don't answer.... (Score:3, Interesting)
2. What CPU will it use (Intel, AMD, other)?
3. How does the sourcing of compnents influence the $100 cost of the laptop? For example, could they get Intel to hand over a bunch of of CPU's cheaply? Can they get Samsung to do the same with RAM?
Re:$100 per child? (Score:4, Interesting)
I did- classes in just such a lab were my first introduction to Assembly Language and the PROPER use of spaghetti code (in miniassemblers, spaghetti code is useful because it allows you to edit your program directly in memory. So useful that indeed it's valueable to put in three NOPS after every 5th instruction so that if you need to you can insert a JSR later).
I'm sure it didn't help for the majority of students- but for the few who would otherwise be spending their time being beat up by jocks, it was a godsend.
Re:$100 per child? (Score:4, Interesting)
I did-- I had an Apple IIe in my 5th & 6th grade classrooms, and I did some programming in Basic & Logo on the system, learned some basic hardware skills.
I tucked those skills away for 10-15 years, but I still think that they helped me to solve logic problems, basic computer hardware skills. I majored in science/humanities major in College, but somehow I still ended up being a Senior System Administrator for a number of companies.
Another way to ask this question: Will the students be at a disadvantage if they do not have tools like a Computer in the classroom?
Obviously they need a roof, teacher, books, etc. But other tools can be valuable as well.
Re:$100 per child? (Score:3, Interesting)
So I don't think anyone will get any real educational value out of them now (they will be teaching word processing, spreadsheets, typing, etc. You know stuff that any 13 year old can figure out).
Re:THE END OF THE AMERICAN TECH WORKER (Score:1, Interesting)
And how does this wonder laptop have anything to do with this? If 1/2 of graduating high school seniors can't read, they won't be able to compete with the foreign competition EVEN IF they never had these laptops and could only learn in school. PLUS, the major reason jobs are going overseas, $$$$, will not be affected by these laptops either. So your statement is pretty much meaningless and hollow.
If we have a literacy problem here in the states, then we need to address the issue of how to teach kids to read, and the answer is not giving every single one of them a laptop.
Re:$100 per child? (Score:4, Interesting)
At a school like mine, a computer lab could conceivably provide access to Wikipedia, and any other number of educational games. My students were fascinated with education games, spent hours looking at entries in Encarta, and made some pretty incredible art with MS Paint. But of course, more needs to be done.
I think in addition to hardware, we also need to create materials to education children on "how" to use the computer. After scouring the net looking for a primer, my colleagues and I decide to write our own. We should not be reinventing the wheel on this problem.
Cheap hardware coupled with the proper teaching materials could do a world of good for developing countries. I just hope it happens sooner rather than later.
Re:THE END OF THE AMERICAN TECH WORKER (Score:3, Interesting)
At any rate, statements like half of x has property p should be substantiated by sources. If half of students can't read wouldn't we hear about it on CNN?
The level of reading required for self-education could be deficient though. It is a lot better now than a few years ago, especially with the power of Google. No one can go to class for every aspect of life or work, and there's no telling whether a book is available to help. Computers to our rescue.
Whenever I go to the library I see thousands of books, but it never gets easy to tell which books are applicable to the current situation at hand. One time I read a few pages about the theory of flaws in metal casting processes. Intriguing but not totally relevant mainly because even if I felt I could make my fortune in the business, I just had no confidence I could assemble enough books in that library to self-educate to the point that I could cast things with less cost, more strength, or whatever. For one thing, casting is bound to be a smelly process and not to be attempted without access to equipment and facilities. So to say that many people cannot read-well, that may be better stated as many people cannot acquire sufficient knowledge for the achievement of even the most fundamental activities occurring in the background of civilization.
So if more and more people get hold of computers, there will be more and more voices clamouring for information, and that should be a good thing. It would be a lot easier for me to acquire comprehensive black and white knowledge for any particular objective.
8th grade reading level is "literate" in USA (Score:3, Interesting)
By 4th grade you can pronounce almost every word other than a few oddballs and words adopted from foreign languages. You can take a good guess at spelling words and names that you've never heard before.
By 8th grade you've probably read dozens if not hundreds of children's books and a few non-challenging adult books too. This assumes at least 1 book a week checked out from the school library for 8 years - not a universal assumption but something most teachers encourage. You've also done some expository and other writing.
Most newspapers are written on an 8th grade reading level.
High school and college add things like:
exposure to more literature, literary analysis, writing papers for various audiences and purposes, etc.
Graduation brings spending 24x7 in front of a computer reading
What does "functionally literate" mean? Off the cuff I'd say it means knowing how to read and write well enough to get along in society without having someone read or interpret things for you. Can you grocery shop, use an ATM, read a paper or at least the crawl on CNN, read your utility bills and catch and respond to billing errors, etc. without help?
Re:$100 per child? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure it is, you just have to frame the question differently. e.g.:
Problem: "Our school doesn't have a roof over it!"
Answer: "You should have a fundraiser to buy roofing construction supplies and some alumni to volunteer labor"
Results: New roof for the school, community strengthening, cost of roof spread out among the entire community via the fundraiser.
Whatever. That might be cost effective, sustainable and useful. Really, you should say:
Problem: "Our school doesn't have a roof, we need CAD software, new computers and a trained IT specialist to help us design one!"
Answer: "Let us give your education ministry a loan from the IMF or DevBank to pursue a CAD-in-Schools project, delivering top-of-the-line CAD-capable desktop computers with the latest non-F/LOSS software on it, spending millions of loan-dollars that we'll have to repay later."
Results: New computers in every school which get ruined as they got delivered during the rainy season to schools with no roof.
But seriously. The problem of course is Negroponte can create buzz with a $100 laptop-for-every-child program, whereas "put a roof on every rural school" just doesn't quite get the same level of interest from most folk, despite the fact that the cost would be lower and benefits per cost much higher. Try arguing that for the value of ventilated pit latrines (or, gasp, running water) -- people blink at you, because they don't get the fact that that is a need for many schools in the developing world. Cheap computers, they grok.
This is not in defense, just explanation and frustration from my own experience.
Basically, I agree -- If you're gonna pony up $100US/child, lemme suggest, oh, maybe, a billion better projects you can direct that towards.
On the other hand, if you've got some of the basics, not having basic computing skills can be a real barrier in getting a good job. Current solutions (that I've seen enacted in programs!) are keyboards with a tiny lcd screen and palmOS [alphasmart.com] for $200+, so a fully functional laptop with some made-for-3rd-world ruggedizing, solar/handcrank power, etc. concepts built in is a potentially valuable idea.
I find it interesting, however, that (according to http://laptop.media.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]):
"Please note that the $100 laptops--not yet in production--will not be available for sale. The laptops will only be distributed to schools directly through large government initiatives. "
I for one would pay twice the price to get a ruggedized, hand-crankable, low-end, paperback-book-sized laptop. I smell something funny, economically speaking, going on here. Either the hardware cost will be at a loss and there's service/support/gov't contracting fees to balance it, or something else funny. I'd imagine the demand for these in the developed world would be reasonably high, so by doing this he's killing his profits that he could use to improve the design for the developing world...
Required every-x-year replacement is bogus too (Score:2, Interesting)
1) calculator-related exercises
2) flashy color
3) "hip" teaching methods
A good teacher can use a 20 year old math book along with supplimental calculator exercises and teach the same material.
On the other hand, some books DO need updating even MORE often than the usual 5-10 year cycle:
Any book or part of a book that touches on historical and political events of the last 10 years.
Any book or part of a book that deals with those parts of science that are rapily-evolving. Science books that teach "classic" science such as Newton's laws don't need updating.
Any book or part of a book that cites "facts" that are now passe, such as a health book that cites the "four food groups."
How to fund these things (Score:3, Interesting)
100$ laptops for... everyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
One thing that always irks me whenever I read a story about these ultra-cheap laptops is that they are ALWAYS presented as some kind of solution for "kids" in "developing nations".
Sure they could use cheap solutions, but hell, so can I!
I'm a student, I have VERY little money right now. I'm fortunate to have a computer, I realize that, but my laptop is slowly dying. I'd love to buy one for $100, even if it wasn't the best, fastest thing around, just to have as a word processing/note-taking/small jobs kind of machine. Why would they refuse to sell these in north america? I think there's definitely a potential market here... why ignore that?
The fact is, not everyone needs a 3.0Ghz AMD64 with a GPU and 512 megs of ram! (Well not until Vista comes out anyways.) *Some* people just need a little machine to do small jobs, like browsing and email. I would love to have the option of walking into a store and picking up a machine like this for $100.