[Air-l] One Laptop Per Child

[Charlie Lowe]

Elijah wrote,

> I'm not certain that you can claim that they're technologically inferior 
> to Western technology, as they *are* Western technology.  ;)  I do think I 
> know what you meant, in the other sense of those words, too, and still 
> don't find the argument compelling.
> 
> If we can build a perfectly usable 500Mhz laptop for a hundred bucks that 
> runs the *state of the art* in available software - that is to say, the 
> very same software (or its close kin, modified for the hardware of the 
> laptop) that is on my desktop here in Indiana - what's the use of having a 
> $3k "Western" desktop machine?

I agree. What was interesting was the original post implied that somehow 
these laptops are inferior because they lack a hard drive. While the 
capacity of the drives is somewhat limited, flash drives are the next 
generation storage solution. Pretty cutting edge. At least Samsung thinks so

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1966644,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

We might also revise our notion of what "state of the art" software 
means. The developers for the $100 laptop are working to create a very 
user-friendly software environment specifically tailored for the 
classroom. When I read Tom Hoffman and Chris Blizzard's discussion of 
the chat application and the way in which the software will allow 
students to create and share content, I see a machine that may be much 
superior for getting students discussing and collaborating than what 
comes stock from Dell or any of the other computer vendors (for many 
thousand more):

http://www.eschoolnews.com/eti/2006/05/001414.php
http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=200

Charlie Lowe