The $100 laptop closer to reality

[jkinz at kinz.org (Jeff Kinz)]

On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 12:34:41PM -0400, Brendan wrote:
> On Thursday 29 September 2005 11:29 am, Jeff Kinz wrote:
> > 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
> 
> This *will* be great. We aren't anywhere near there though.

Very true.
> 
> > 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.)
> 
> Through WiFi on a fieldtrip? That would be somethin' to see.
> If you couldn't install things on the laptop except for approved apps or if 
> the ports were blocked inside the school, yeah.

The design of the $100 dollar laptops seems to defeat this
automatically.  They have no local storage. (No hard drive, they boot
off of a "Rom'med" Linux.

These are, to some degree, "thin clients" :-)



> 
> > > 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.....
> 
> My father has been a professor for 40 years. He is rarely given full choices 
> in his books. He is usually given a range or no choice at all. Typically 
> schools have deals with manufacturers/companies that produce the books.

Interesting. At my school(s) the professors would even xerox
pre-publication drafts and use those for texts if the book they desired
wasn't published in time.  Invariably the individual professors seemed
highly involved in making the choices.  If more than one was teaching
the same course (multiple sections) they would try to agree on one text.


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