The $100 laptop closer to reality

[jkinz at kinz.org (Jeff Kinz)]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 11:16:26AM -0400, Brendan wrote:
> On Thursday 29 September 2005 11:17 am, Anthony Gabrielson wrote:
> > On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Ben Jackson wrote:
> > For $100 you can have the laptop, and then with the pdf version of a
> > text book for $25ish and always have the most up to date version - thats
> > great.  Seems like a good way to go to me.  Do students these days really
> > write past the fifth grade?  In a day where I have read that many
> > universities consider undergrad libraries obsolete, this seems a logical
> > progression.
> 
> Yes, logical if you want the dumbest kids in the world.
> 
> Why are American kids getting dumber? Instead of technology being pushed into 
> every crevice, we need some research that conclusively says where it's 
> needed, and where an actual book is better. Mostly, this is going to be used 
> for IM to other kids. Of course, some of them are going to learn more with a 
> laptop, and I guess we'll just depend on those kids making it to adulthood to 
> run the country.

I have a more positive outlook.  Eventually technology will enable
schools to tutor each student individually, with a curriculum that will
be specifically customized to the approach that works best for that
students individual brain wiring. As for things like IM being a
distraction, (making kids "stupider") eventually the kids themselves
learn how to manage this. (And most school environments will probably 
just shut it off/filter it.)

Yeah, some kids will hack through it anyway. So we'll hire those. :)


> The book monopoly/lobby/scam-artists are never, ever going to allow a 25 
> dollar, self-updating PDF file. Forget that dream, when they are making 
> 100-150 per book, per student, per class. No way are they going to ditch 
> *that* revenue-stream.

As long as they have a choice, they won't.  Most colleges/Universities
let the instructor choose the text for the class. Often the text will
be one the instructor or a friend of their's has written.....

Primary schools are a little better.

Ultimately, a shift to this:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

or this:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Electrical-Engineering-and-Computer-Science/6-345Automatic-Speech-RecognitionSpring2003/CourseHome/index.htm
may be the best way to go.


-- 
speech recognition software was used in the composition of this e-mail
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
??Ya no mas!