[iDC] One Laptop Per Child - MIT/Negroponte Initiative

Sat Oct 20 23:58:32 UTC 2007

Hi all,

The OLPC program is widely discussed elsewhere, of course, but there were
some particularly interesting conversations about it a while back on the
association of internet researchers¹ list, of which may interest members of
this list as well:

http://listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/2006-June/thread.html#9969

I was also reminded that a while back there was also this nice blog entry
from Jorge Aranda, who understands and supports the project but makes some
interesting critiques of the way the design is shaped by the values of the
producers, possibly more than it serves the needs of the users:

³There is a common criticism thrown to the OLPC: You want to give laptops to
kids that really need food or shelter. As the OLPC wiki responds, this
criticism reflects an ignorance of the conditions of many developing
countries, which have enough food and shelter, but not enough learning
opportunities. Unfortunately, the software developers with the OLPC seem to
have made an assumption as mistaken as that of the project¹s critics: that
what children in developing countries need is what our geeky selves would
want if we were kids again. Instead of striving to design the best
educational tool possible (and, remember, the best textbook substitute),
they want to design a kid-hacker¹s dream: Browseable and modifiable code
(one should be able to see the code that runs any part of any application
easily), private access (your laptop is your temple), extensibility. The
software design seems to come from the geek in us, not from the pedagogue in
us²

Link: 
<http://catenary.wordpress.com/2007/04/15/a-friendly-criticism-of-the-one-la
ptop-per-child-project/ > Or: <http://preview.tinyurl.com/2mvsz7>

I am particularly struck by the prioritisation of openness and Œhackability¹
over the kinds of Œtransparent¹ usability (which isn¹t transparency at all,
of course) that we users of windows and mac operating systems have become
acculturated to. We¹re all waiting to see how it will turn out, I suppose.

Best
Jean

-- 
Dr. Jean Burgess
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (cci)
Queensland University of Technology

Blogs:
http://creativitymachine.net
http://propagatingmedia.com

From: R Labossiere <admin at klooj.net>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:13:07 -0400
To: <idc at mailman.thing.net>
Subject: [iDC] One Laptop Per Child - MIT/Negroponte Initiative

Thanks for letting us know about this Paul. It's is a very interesting
initiative. I've signed up for notification of the release. My 10 year old
is very interested. I'm very interested. Both of us curious about the laptop
itself, how it teaches and what. It's definitely a sweet looking instrument.

So I am on board... but that said, here on the list I can say that I am not
without skepticism... is this not another Western populist effort to "help"
the "rest of the world," where "help assumes a priviledge which most of us
don't actually share, and "rest of the world" assumes that we can short cut
past government and institutions and "people to people" create a
revolution... how  is that supposed to work when we can't even get George
Bush out of the White House?

I admit I'm confused. What happened to the the days when "red" meant a
different kind of government and not a campaign where you are supposed to
buy your way to social justice?

- just asking

----- Original Message -----
>  
> From:  Paul D.  Miller <mailto:anansi1 at earthlink.net>
>  
> To: idc at mailman.thing.net
>  
> Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 7:21  PM
>  
> Subject: [iDC] One Laptop Per Child -  MIT/Negroponte Initiative
>  
> 
>  
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/One_Laptop_per_Child
>  
> 
>  
> As a method of provoking some kind of discourse around - gasp - digital  media
> in a multi-cultural digital arts context, I wanted to post this to the  list.
> Several artists, composers, writers, code script folks, and many other
> creatives participated in the project.
>  
> 
>  
> The One Laptop Per Child is a global initiative to foster education in
> digital media throughout "under-developed" countries.
>  
> 
>  
> Bundled into the software for the One Laptop Per Child project, there  will be
> a couple of compilations of electronic music to get the kids into the  idea of
> contemporary composition and digital literacy. I donated beats,  scratches,
> and various midi components for the project, as did several other  electronic
> and digital media artists from a wide variety of cultures (and  ethnic
> groups). The software is all open source, and the templates and core  kernels
> are in Linux. The tracks are all remixable and come in separate  components.
>  
> 
>  
> The software for the project was compiled with Jamendo:
>  
> 
>  
> Jamendo: http://www.jamendo.com/fr/artist/Beatpick/
>  
> 
>  
> The laptops will be released in November. Please check out the material!
> Debate/discussion is welcome!
>  
> 
>  
> in peace,
>  
> Paul aka Dj Spooky
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
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