Re: [change] 25$ Raspberry Pi PC could revolutionalize education in developing countries
Wayan Vota replied with his insightful comments , but only to the TIER list, so pasting his reply here below in {}, so change list folks can also see it. { Oui. Ashish, I certainly have a different opinion that you on the Raspberry Pi. Let me respond to a few of your points inline... Just came across news, that Raspberry Pi GPU outperforms iphone 4s's gpu by 2x & also outperforms Nvidia's Tegra2. This device has amazing potential to create low-cost PCs for children in the developing world & encourage programming the world over. I am unsure how processing power relates to low-cost PCs. The Pi is simply a CPU. No screen, no keyboard, no human accessible I/O of any sort. Not even digital storage the last time I checked. So all those need to be added. But the result is not in a clean form factor like an iPhone, iPad, or even modular desktop. Just a bunch of wires. I don't see that lasting long in a hot, dusty room with many, many grubby hands. I am curious to know what other people think of XO3 vs Raspberry Pi Vs Aakash (the Indian govt.'s low cost tablet) Well the Pi vs. the OLPC in education is pretty easy - I wrote about that already here: The $25 Raspberry Pi is 3.14x More Useless than XO Laptops http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/competition/the_25_raspberry_pi_computer_... 3. From a pedagogical viewpoint, IMHO, i think younger kids should not have a digital device 24x& as they can get "addicted" to it . It is more important to impart a sense of curiosity & learning, & having an XO3 might hamper other social activities - going outdoors & playing with other kids So i feel younger kids could be exposed to low-cost computers( made of a RP hi) in school, which are low cost & encourage tinkering (open source, simple inexpensive hw) while elder (say high school kids can get their own personal XO3 Actually, you have it the wrong way around. It would be best for younger children to have an XO-typoe device so they could explore and learn concepts, ideas, and basic mental concepts within the safe environment of a fully contained computer. Once they are old enough to understand the parts, to grasp programming, they could graduate to the bits and pieces. Yet, i think you are going down the wrong path in your overall goal. It should not be to try and create a new cadre of programmers. That's not going to happen. There are only x amount of potential programmers that exist in the world's children, where X is a very small percentage. Showering the world with Pi's will not magically increase that number, just as showering the world with play doctor kits will not magically create more doctors. 4. From an Indian perspective, i wish the Indian govt scraps the crappy Aakash tablet in favour of the XO3. Actually, the Aakash has a lot going for it on the technology side: http://www.ictworks.org/news/2012/01/23/47-aakash-android-tablet-will-revolu... But if you want to put it or the OLPC into education, well, you'll fail with both as you are thinking hardware is the solution, as I explained here: http://wayan.com/ict4d/the-35-aakash-tablet-olpc.html Or as Richard Rowe explains here: https://edutechdebate.org/creating-electronic-educational-content/we-need-a-... The XO3 comes with 802.11b/g &s(mesh) & the concept of school servers, so kids can download learning content even if access to the larger public Internet is not available. Aakash has GPRS( much slower) & RPi supports wired ethernet & USB Wifi dongles. Both of these points are irrelevant. It doesn't matter if one connects via shoe strings and tin cans and the other is on fiber. What actually matters is a trained and motivated teacher, empowered with relevant and engaging content, able to have personalized interactions with an attentive and excited student. ICT like the Pi, XO, or Aakash, can play a facilitative role in this interaction - but just that. The key is still wetware - humans, not hardware. Wayan -- ............................................................... Wayan Vota Senior Director Inveneo: http://inveneo.org Email: wayan@inveneo.org Mobile: +1.202.746.8269 Skype/Yahoo IM: wayan_vota ............................................................... Start your day with ICTworks http://www.ictworks.org } On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Rahul Banerjee <banerjee@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
(not spamming everybody, since I'm not really adding anything that hasn't already been said before)
@Yaw: I remember starting the "Aakash" thread and this is the same thing all over again.
@Manish: Good points, and ultimately, it is the supporting ecosystem around the product (availability/subsidy, support, tutoring/mentoring, specially-designed curriculum) that will decide how successful it is in helping improve underprivileged/needy kids' future. Personally speaking, I want one of those -- it looks like an awesome platform for hobbyists/DIY'ers!
-- Rahul
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
Ashish,
I don't think it's because of the lack of a powerful GPU that schools in low-income areas are failing. I also don't think the ubiquity of computing devices translates to everyone learning how to tinker and becoming programmers.
I do think you hinted at the real problems. How does one impart a sense of curiosity and a love of learning to a child? How do we generate relevant (and language-specific) content that provably educates students at scale? We can barely do all that in the West with all the money and technology we have, so how can we do it in a rural school in India where we have yet to solve teacher absenteeism?
Don't get me wrong. I love to think big, I love technology, and I'm optimistic that we can have some impact on the problems the world faces, but let's pick the right problem to solve and not get ahead of ourselves. From television to the Simputer, history is littered with educational technologies with infinite promise and zero impact on changing the fortunes of the poor.
https://edutechdebate.org has lots of resources that do this topic justice. Might be a good place for those interested in this problem to start looking...
Yaw
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 05:20, ashish makani <ashish.makani@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks
Just came across news, that Raspberry Pi GPU outperforms iphone 4s's gpu by 2x & also outperforms Nvidia's Tegra2.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-raspberry-pi-gpu-outperform...
This device has amazing potential to create low-cost PCs for children in the developing world & encourage programming the world over.
Detailed interview with Eben Upton, RPi's executive director (free registration required) http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-raspberry-pi
I am curious to know what other people think of XO3 vs Raspberry Pi Vs Aakash (the Indian govt.'s low cost tablet)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8428147.stm http://asia.cnet.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-olpc-xo-3-0-tablet-62213156....
1. Raspberry Pi(RPi) requires monitor + mouse +k/b while XO3 is self-contained. 2. RPi is more geared to be a lab machine or a home pc while XO3 is more of a personal device.
3. From a pedagogical viewpoint, IMHO, i think younger kids should not have a digital device 24x& as they can get "addicted" to it . It is more important to impart a sense of curiosity & learning, & having an XO3 might hamper other social activities - going outdoors & playing with other kids.
So i feel younger kids could be exposed to low-cost computers( made of a RP hi) in school, which are low cost & encourage tinkering (open source, simple inexpensive hw) while elder (say high school kids can get their own personal XO3
4. From an Indian perspective, i wish the Indian govt scraps the crappy Aakash tablet in favour of the XO3.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/08/the-inside-story-of-indias-50-comp... http://phonemantra.com/2012/01/olpc-india-head-rips-into-aakash-calls-it-pre...
The vast majority of schools in India are run by the govt & most govt. schools dont have a computer lab or the computers:students ratio is abysmal
5. Internet connectivity
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.akashtablet.com/
The XO3 comes with 802.11b/g &s(mesh) & the concept of school servers, so kids can download learning content even if access to the larger public Internet is not available.
Aakash has GPRS( much slower) & RPi supports wired ethernet & USB Wifi dongles.
Exciting times ahead for sure & would love to hear from other people.
cheers ashish _______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
_______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
What is the research regarding the idea that there is a fixed percentage of the world's population that might grow up to be programmers? As a member of that small percentage it's sometimes nice to hear that I'm a genetic winner, but I also have an interest in education and (although not a teacher) my hope is that people are capable of learning almost any skill, given the right attitude and environment. Would be interested but saddened to hear otherwise. That said, I'm also not a fan of the various eduware as standalone solution. For most tech people there's an intuitive, "I grew up with PCs, therefore I became a programmer", but scratching a little deeper there are usually role models and good infrastructure and free time to experiment etc. Fritz On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 9:05 AM, ashish makani <ashish.makani@gmail.com>wrote:
Yet, i think you are going down the wrong path in your overall goal. It should not be to try and create a new cadre of programmers. That's not going to happen. There are only x amount of potential programmers that exist in the world's children, where X is a very small percentage. Showering the world with Pi's will not magically increase that number, just as showering the world with play doctor kits will not magically create more doctors.
4. From an Indian perspective, i wish the Indian govt scraps the crappy Aakash tablet in favour of the XO3.
Actually, the Aakash has a lot going for it on the technology side:
http://www.ictworks.org/news/2012/01/23/47-aakash-android-tablet-will-revolu...
But if you want to put it or the OLPC into education, well, you'll fail with both as you are thinking hardware is the solution, as I explained here: http://wayan.com/ict4d/the-35-aakash-tablet-olpc.html
Or as Richard Rowe explains here:
https://edutechdebate.org/creating-electronic-educational-content/we-need-a-...
The XO3 comes with 802.11b/g &s(mesh) & the concept of school servers, so kids can download learning content even if access to the larger public Internet is not available.
Aakash has GPRS( much slower) & RPi supports wired ethernet & USB Wifi dongles.
Both of these points are irrelevant. It doesn't matter if one connects via shoe strings and tin cans and the other is on fiber.
What actually matters is a trained and motivated teacher, empowered with relevant and engaging content, able to have personalized interactions with an attentive and excited student. ICT like the Pi, XO, or Aakash, can play a facilitative role in this interaction - but just that. The key is still wetware - humans, not hardware.
Wayan
--
...............................................................
Wayan Vota Senior Director Inveneo: http://inveneo.org
Email: wayan@inveneo.org Mobile: +1.202.746.8269 Skype/Yahoo IM: wayan_vota
...............................................................
Start your day with ICTworks http://www.ictworks.org
}
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 10:10 PM, Rahul Banerjee <banerjee@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
(not spamming everybody, since I'm not really adding anything that hasn't already been said before)
@Yaw: I remember starting the "Aakash" thread and this is the same thing all over again.
@Manish: Good points, and ultimately, it is the supporting ecosystem around the product (availability/subsidy, support, tutoring/mentoring, specially-designed curriculum) that will decide how successful it is in helping improve underprivileged/needy kids' future. Personally speaking, I want one of those -- it looks like an awesome platform for hobbyists/DIY'ers!
-- Rahul
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Yaw Anokwa <yanokwa@cs.washington.edu> wrote:
Ashish,
I don't think it's because of the lack of a powerful GPU that schools in low-income areas are failing. I also don't think the ubiquity of computing devices translates to everyone learning how to tinker and becoming programmers.
I do think you hinted at the real problems. How does one impart a sense of curiosity and a love of learning to a child? How do we generate relevant (and language-specific) content that provably educates students at scale? We can barely do all that in the West with all the money and technology we have, so how can we do it in a rural school in India where we have yet to solve teacher absenteeism?
Don't get me wrong. I love to think big, I love technology, and I'm optimistic that we can have some impact on the problems the world faces, but let's pick the right problem to solve and not get ahead of ourselves. From television to the Simputer, history is littered with educational technologies with infinite promise and zero impact on changing the fortunes of the poor.
https://edutechdebate.org has lots of resources that do this topic justice. Might be a good place for those interested in this problem to start looking...
Yaw
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 05:20, ashish makani <ashish.makani@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Folks
Just came across news, that Raspberry Pi GPU outperforms iphone 4s's gpu by 2x & also outperforms Nvidia's Tegra2.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-raspberry-pi-gpu-outperform...
This device has amazing potential to create low-cost PCs for children in the developing world & encourage programming the world over.
Detailed interview with Eben Upton, RPi's executive director (free registration required)
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/digitalfoundry-inside-raspberry-pi
I am curious to know what other people think of XO3 vs Raspberry Pi Vs Aakash (the Indian govt.'s low cost tablet)
http://asia.cnet.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-olpc-xo-3-0-tablet-62213156....
1. Raspberry Pi(RPi) requires monitor + mouse +k/b while XO3 is
self-contained.
2. RPi is more geared to be a lab machine or a home pc while XO3 is more of a personal device.
3. From a pedagogical viewpoint, IMHO, i think younger kids should not have a digital device 24x& as they can get "addicted" to it . It is more important to impart a sense of curiosity & learning, & having an XO3 might hamper other social activities - going outdoors & playing with other kids.
So i feel younger kids could be exposed to low-cost computers( made of a RP hi) in school, which are low cost & encourage tinkering (open source, simple inexpensive hw) while elder (say high school kids can get their own personal XO3
4. From an Indian perspective, i wish the Indian govt scraps the crappy Aakash tablet in favour of the XO3.
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/08/the-inside-story-of-indias-50-comp...
http://phonemantra.com/2012/01/olpc-india-head-rips-into-aakash-calls-it-pre...
The vast majority of schools in India are run by the govt & most govt. schools dont have a computer lab or the computers:students ratio is abysmal
5. Internet connectivity
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml http://www.raspberrypi.org/faqs http://www.akashtablet.com/
The XO3 comes with 802.11b/g &s(mesh) & the concept of school servers, so kids can download learning content even if access to the larger public Internet is not available.
Aakash has GPRS( much slower) & RPi supports wired ethernet & USB
Wifi dongles.
Exciting times ahead for sure & would love to hear from other people.
cheers ashish _______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
_______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
_______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
The cognitive gymnastics are a bit easier to master if you start early, as with language acquisition and mathematics literacy. The skill is also relatively location-agnostic; even crud-level freelancing jobs correspond to a comfortable living in many places. But there's a lot of value to cheap computing beyond "become a programmer," I don't think that's even the primary value of this trend. For example, Stephen Vick gave a talk recently <http://hcde.uw.edu/521/win12/jan6> on work they're doing to improve quality and traceability for coffee farmers. Just dropping a laptop into the process to record and track data had a big impact, but the cost is infeasible if the program wasn't providing it. $25(ish) computer which can do the same tasks? Yes please! James
Thanks for the amazing comments & pointers ! My $0.02 on some of the replies 1. Peripherals & true cost A lot of people have pointed out the fact that the RPi is only 25$ just for the cpu. Adding RAM, display, mouse, k/b will balloon up the costs. a. To this, i would like to argue the notion of a platform. once a platform becomes available, the community builds tons of awesome things (sw & hw peripherals) for the platform to make a kickass ecosystem. e.g. when successful platforms (e.g. fb, iphone ,android,xbox,sony ps, kinect, twitter, etc) 1st came out, nobody could imagine, the massive #of community efforts (e.g. apps) that will pour in. But as with all platforms, predicting success of a new platform is very hard & kind of a chicken & egg problem - Does the platform have to gain enough adoption for it to drive the ecosystem OR does enough of a ecosystem have to sprout to drive the platform's adoption ? b. To build a PC out of RPi, at a min., you need a display, mouse & k/b. I can imagine lets say if govt./org X decides to use RPi for a large scale project, they could build a non-profit coalition comprising display makers(samsung), k/b & mouse makers which would supply low-cost displays, k/bs & mice. 2. I completely *get* the notion that innovative & exciting techology in itself is not going to solve any of society's problems. I find myself in complete agreement with ICTD pioneer Kentaro's viewpoints on this topic & his brilliant articulation " technology only amplifies human intent and capacity" On education he says "Technology at best only amplifies the pedagogical capacity of educational systems; it can make good schools better, but it makes bad schools worse." [I] His TEDxTokyo talk on this issue is here<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxutDM2r534> [II] 3. The Indian Aakash tablet I am curious to know if Kentaro/others are familiar with details of the Aakash project. One thing that bugs me is that of all the educational devices projects worldwide, the OLPC is probably the most mature & has the "best" hardware. I read on the Aakash wiki page [III], " After the device was unveiled, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte offered full access to OLPC technology at no cost to the Indian team." I wonder if the Aakash could have much better design & specs, if they had truly collaborated with OLPC. I. http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/there-are-no-technology-shortcuts-to... II. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxutDM2r534 III. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aakash_(tablet)#cite_note-15 On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 12:50 AM, James Gray <grayje@uw.edu> wrote:
The cognitive gymnastics are a bit easier to master if you start early, as with language acquisition and mathematics literacy. The skill is also relatively location-agnostic; even crud-level freelancing jobs correspond to a comfortable living in many places.
But there's a lot of value to cheap computing beyond "become a programmer,"
I don't think that's even the primary value of this trend. For example, Stephen Vick gave a talk recently on work they're doing to improve quality and traceability for coffee farmers. Just dropping a laptop into the process to record and track data had a big impact, but the cost is infeasible if the program wasn't providing it. $25(ish) computer which can do the same tasks? Yes please!
James
_______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
Change list folks, please read from below (change list skipped again in the reply, for a couple of replies) <OT> :Can somebody clarify if the change list is a subset of the TIER list ? Wayan, 1. Maybe i was not clear enough . As i wrote, i indeed "get" Kentaro's point :) But once that's a given, we(especially developing countries like India) have finite & scarce resources. So it behooves us as to come up with the most impactful, cost-effective tech (gadgets, etc) to support the core mission of, imparting learning with motivated teachers & administrators, committed to making a difference. Throwing iPads (or any random computing device willy nilly) at students is not a wise solution IMHO. It doesn't matter if you dumped Pi's or iPads on India's schools. IMO, It does matter. India & other developing countries can afford RPis & XO3s but not iPads. A device which can supplement & aid learning, & was specifically designed to accomplish that (with inputs from motivated teachers with pedagogical insights ) as hinted to by Niall below, is a significantly more optimal choice. (optimal = better results:cost ratio) . IMHO the XO-3 is such a device. 2. A slightly tangential point which just occurred to me. For higher professional education ( college/university , grad school, etc), there are a whole bunch of new innovative free "online classes" which have met with great early success. These can help students world over, to get access to world-class learning content & resources, with just a device & internet access. a. Khan Academy http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/technology/khan-academy-blends-its-youtube... b. ai-class.com (offered by Stanford Prof. Thrun & his new co. Udacity) ml-class.org, pgm-class.org (offered by Coursera (Prof.s Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller) ) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/science/daphne-koller-technology-as-a-pass... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3500301 For learning CS & programming in a structured manner, http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/22/codecademy-surges-to-200000-users-2-1-milli... I know there are inherent limitations to this : the students need to be highly self-motivated to benefit from these & , it lacks the face-to-face interaction with the teacher & fellow students in the same physical space, & a lot of learning is from fellow students. But, i think, for a self-motivated students anywhere, who don't have access to a great university or good teachers, a device with internet access, can help alleviate the problem significantly, with these new "online classes". cheers ashish ******************************************************************************************************************************* Niall Winters ✆ n.winters@ioe.ac.uk via tier.cs.berkeley.edu 7:30 AM (1 hour ago) to Wayan, tier Agreed with non-technocentric part of this but it is even more complex and I don't think technology independent (although this argument goes all the way back to the 70's!) I like to think of technologies as tools to support particular ways of thinking (or providing particular insights) that couldn't be done without them. Think dynamic geometry or data visualisations. We need teacher to be designers of innovative learning activities with technologies (see http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/503/ for some early ideas on this) or at the least the tools that support students' computational thinking (NetLogo or Scratch are exemplars) are co-designed iteratively with teachers. Therefore pedagogical design, technology and teacher training are not mutually independent but we could all do a better job of ensuring they are more tightly interwoven! Niall ***************************************************************************************************************** Wayan Vota ✆ wayan.vota@inveneo.org via<http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=1311182> tier.cs.berkeley.edu 7:08 AM (1 hour ago) to tier These two paragraphs contradict themselves. In the first, you agree that technology is not the real issue, and in the second you come back to thinking that if the technology was just a bit better, then.... It doesn't matter if you dumped Pi's or iPads on India's schools. The problems (and therefore the solutions) to India's major education issues do not involve technology. See http://www.ictworks.org/news/2011/11/02/technology-should-not-be-focus-india... a deeper analysis. Or as I like to remind myself when I get all amped up about the latest gadget (and we all do), the greatest educators, from Socrates to Montessori, were technology independent. So we have to start with trained and motivated educators (the human intent of Kentaro) and then we can add gadgets as we like to boost this or that outcome. Pis for programming, XO's for curiosity, iPhones for Angry Bird Geometry, iPads for literacy, etc 2. I completely *get* the notion that innovative & exciting techology in itself is not going to solve any of society's problems. I find myself in complete agreement with ICTD pioneer Kentaro's viewpoints on this topic & his brilliant articulation " technology only amplifies human intent and capacity" 3. The Indian Aakash tablet I am curious to know if Kentaro/others are familiar with details of the Aakash project. One thing that bugs me is that of all the educational devices projects worldwide, the OLPC is probably the most mature & has the "best" hardware. I read on the Aakash wiki page [III], " After the device was unveiled, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte offered full access to OLPC technology at no cost to the Indian team." I wonder if the Aakash could have much better design & specs, if they had truly collaborated with OLPC. Wayan -- ******************************************************************************************************************************* On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 1:53 AM, ashish makani <ashish.makani@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for the amazing comments & pointers ! My $0.02 on some of the replies
1. Peripherals & true cost
A lot of people have pointed out the fact that the RPi is only 25$ just for the cpu. Adding RAM, display, mouse, k/b will balloon up the costs.
a. To this, i would like to argue the notion of a platform. once a platform becomes available, the community builds tons of awesome things (sw & hw peripherals) for the platform to make a kickass ecosystem. e.g. when successful platforms (e.g. fb, iphone ,android,xbox,sony ps, kinect, twitter, etc) 1st came out, nobody could imagine, the massive #of community efforts (e.g. apps) that will pour in.
But as with all platforms, predicting success of a new platform is very hard & kind of a chicken & egg problem - Does the platform have to gain enough adoption for it to drive the ecosystem OR does enough of a ecosystem have to sprout to drive the platform's adoption ?
b. To build a PC out of RPi, at a min., you need a display, mouse & k/b. I can imagine lets say if govt./org X decides to use RPi for a large scale project, they could build a non-profit coalition comprising display makers(samsung), k/b & mouse makers which would supply low-cost displays, k/bs & mice.
2. I completely *get* the notion that innovative & exciting techology in itself is not going to solve any of society's problems. I find myself in complete agreement with ICTD pioneer Kentaro's viewpoints on this topic & his brilliant articulation " technology only amplifies human intent and capacity" On education he says "Technology at best only amplifies the pedagogical capacity of educational systems; it can make good schools better, but it makes bad schools worse." [I] His TEDxTokyo talk on this issue is here [II]
3. The Indian Aakash tablet
I am curious to know if Kentaro/others are familiar with details of the Aakash project. One thing that bugs me is that of all the educational devices projects worldwide, the OLPC is probably the most mature & has the "best" hardware. I read on the Aakash wiki page [III], " After the device was unveiled, OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte offered full access to OLPC technology at no cost to the Indian team." I wonder if the Aakash could have much better design & specs, if they had truly collaborated with OLPC.
I.
http://edutechdebate.org/ict-in-schools/there-are-no-technology-shortcuts-to...
II. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxutDM2r534 III. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aakash_(tablet)#cite_note-15
On Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 12:50 AM, James Gray <grayje@uw.edu> wrote:
The cognitive gymnastics are a bit easier to master if you start early, as with language acquisition and mathematics literacy. The skill is also relatively location-agnostic; even crud-level freelancing jobs correspond to a comfortable living in many places.
But there's a lot of value to cheap computing beyond "become a programmer,"
I don't think that's even the primary value of this trend. For example, Stephen Vick gave a talk recently on work they're doing to improve quality and traceability for coffee farmers. Just dropping a laptop into the process to record and track data had a big impact, but the cost is infeasible if the program wasn't providing it. $25(ish) computer which can do the same tasks? Yes please!
James
_______________________________________________ change mailing list change@change.washington.edu http://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
participants (3)
-
ashish makani
-
Fritz Meissner
-
James Gray