The $100 laptop debate: An Australian teacher’s cogent reply to John Dvorak
You already know. PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak hates the idea of One Laptop Per Child. Why buy computers for children in Nigeria and elsewhere when, as John sees it, Nicholas Negroponte might as well be Marie “Let them eat cake” Antoinette?
Well, John, you might check out some powerful arguments from Greg Schofield, a teacher in Australia who has agreed to contribute to the main part of the TeleBlog from time to time. Greg isn’t just spouting theory. He tells of his actual use of computers with underachieving students. Meanwhile here are his main arguments:
“Education does not solve poverty, but it supplies the poor with a brilliant weapon to form and pursue their interests in ending poverty.
“Computers, as devices of communication, do not in themselves educate. But as a tool of education, and as communication devices, they give access to the means of education—literature of sciences and humanities.
“For schools that hardly have any books at all, through such communication devices will have libraries, aside from any other features found on the computer. This has a beneficial effect on education.”
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