Recent efforts by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation to place a laptop in the hands of every child in developing nations are not bringing-forth the results expected or anticipated by their proponents. Recent studies of the effort, reports ReadWrite, state that "no measurable improvement in math, reading, motivation or time spent on homework" is seen as a result of the effort, though "some positive effects are found, however, in general cognitive skills". Read the full article at the source link below.
What do you believe is the cause of the overall failure of the OLPC effort? Is it the limited capabilities of the XO Laptop provided, the poor Internet capabilities of these developing countries, or some other reason? Leave your thoughts in the comments section down below.
Source:
ReadWrite
"The only thing that happens is the laptops get opened, turned on, kids and teachers get frustrated by hardware and software bugs, don’t understand what to do, and promptly box them up to put back in the corner."
ReplyDeleteThis is a quote taken from the article, and it perfectly shows what has been the same problem seen throughout the years for any integration of technology on a large scale in education. Technology developers need to be aware that getting a product into a class room is only a small piece of a larger issue. Teachers need to be trained on the integration of that technology if any of it is to stick.
It is very disheartening to see that a project that had such great intentions has been tanking. However, It seems that they overestimated and did not think through the efforts they would need to make alongside providing laptops. In areas with low internet capabilities laptops can have minimal effects on the learning of students. Additionally, laptops are not magically understood when introduced to teachers and students who have not had experience with them. There are important steps before you can hand a student a laptop and expect them to excel. Teachers need to be taught how to use the technologies, internet needs to be available to the areas that would receive laptops, and students need to receive education on how to implement this tool. One other issue that is faced by this XO laptop per child effort, is that this project is not keeping up with todays technology and is therefore not cost effective and does not provide the students with a better and easier to manage processer.
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