One Laptop per Child: The Cognitive Challenges

Antonio M Battro--One Laptop for Every Child
Keynote Presentation at SITE 2008, Las Vegas NV

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of Media Lab, MIT
Initial Concept--Get laptops in Developing Countries

Children are given laptops and they belong to them.

Goal of One Laptop for Every Child is to Saturate Developing Countries with these machines.

Gave example of Uruguay--Makes the point that machines are not given through the Ministry of Education, and/but to the child.

Machine is designed for early ages!
Screen is icon-based.
Uruguay is starting in kindergarten. Original idea was to start at first grade, but One Laptop Per Child is not open to that.

Battro studied with Jean Piaget--and he is influenced by Piaget and Seymour Papert. Papert asserted back in '61, that children should have computers.

Constructionism
Learning to Learn
Children Teach--they start to teach very early.

This is why the PCs are given to children--so that if millions of computers are in children's hands then there willb e millions of teachers.

Says that Howard Gardner is looking at Digital Intelligence--
Talked about study where parrots recognize each other speak through computers.
This is why computers work with children--they can make them speak!

While there are studies on the "learning brain," there are no studies on the "teaching brain."

Again, this is why children have the computers, bc children can teach!

Relates to model of "the other mind."
We know that the other doesn't know and we know when the other knows--in between we have all teh skills to teach and learn.

In the near future, we will have in the classroom, this kind of equipment distributed among teachers and students to measure this kind of activity.

Saturation--

By the end of the year, every child in on particular community will have a machine.

This is a kind of vaccination.

Education by vaccination--It's key that everyone be vaccinated--so saturation is key with computers--every child needs one.

Computers that are distributed are wireless. Schools have the wireless servers and there is accessibility up to 1K from the computer.

Likes the metaphor--computer as a town--does not like computer as a tool.

The computers work with multiple language.s
Textbooks are electronic and received through the computer.

Small computer--little green handle--screen can be read in bright sun. Machine is very robust and has excellent internal ergonomics.


Shows a picture of a school in Nairobi--no doors--no windows. Little Nairobi girl is carrying her machine to school on her head--like someone in their village might carry water or basket.

www.laptop.org

Computer is not a “tool” but rather a town—opens up the community of learning to include teachers, students, parents—local experts.

Teachers are our best collaborators.

Important to have the computers with them all the time—not just in a lab, or at scheduled formal meetings, but accessible for sharing at any time.

Student Written Textbooks:

Re-define the process of curriculum. One participant suggested that there is a simple topical list of curriculum that students then go and add to that—flesh it out, so there is both directed curriculum and student-generated curriculum.

Censorship question is raised. Are some countries resistant to this program bc it threatens the power?

To apply. Come to Cambridge, spend a week with a team from your country and go to a workshop that is designed for you.

Question about “the electronic book.”

In this program---any teacher can download any book that he/she wants, if they have access to the One Laptop for Every Child database.

These computers are had cranked—10 minutes of crank=one hour of battery time.

The batteries run up to 8 hours.

Schools in the program must have wireless network.

Computers must be given to the children so they can be use at school and at home—expand the hours of work in millions of ways.

Program: Take One Give Many—helps organizations give computers