At the risk of aligning myself too readily with the potential
techno-utopianism of the $100 Laptop project, I'd just like to point to
Sugata Mitra's "Hole-in-the-Wall" studies and the surprising success that
project had, using "Minimally Invasive Education" (their trademarked term)
in increasing (at least some forms of) computer literacy among children in a
variety of technologically disadvantaged rural settings: 
Check it out: http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/findings.html


On Wed, 7 Jun 2006 16:38:17 -0400 air-l@listserv.aoir.org wrote:
> Look, i've used pots and pans for shovels before to dig my way out of  
> snow drifts before i could afford a shovel. I've also used my old	
> computer as a stepping stool.   if there is a practical use for	
> something that goes above and beyond its immediate projected	
> usefulness, you can believe that people will be smart enough to use	
> it that way.	It is pragmatics and common sense.  If the use value of  
> an object is higher in another mode of use for whatever reason in a	
> particular situation, then it will likely be used that way.  if the	
> use value of information technology is less than that of using it for  
> a another need, people will tend to use it for the other need.   it	
> is not 'racist' to admit that.   I've lived in rural areas in the	
> u.s. and urban areas and let me tell you, people do not always use	
> things in ways that I would use them and I don't expect that of	
> anyone else.	  Do you?
> 
> The laptop... has built into it a certain ideology and set of western  
> norms.   There is a huge mental and knowledge infrastructure that	
> goes into giving laptops the 'aura' that they have in our everyday	
> lives.   there is a ton of evidence that has shown that just giving	
> countries computing infrastructure is not enough to transform them	
> into learning or knowledge societies, there has to be an education	
> program to parallel that infrastructure and then there has to be a	
> plan for sustainability of the infrastructure also.	In short, we	
> have to export the ideology, norms, and knowledges to make things	
> work the way we think they should work.  However, it should be	
> granted that not everyone thinks that we should pursue the	
> normalization in parallel to the distribution of technology...	
> However, then why are we designing the infrastructure according to	
> our norms.
> 
> my point is that this program has no educational or sustainability	
> program iin place and thus what will happen to it?   what would you	
> do with the computer when the computer no longer works? or you can't	
> figure out how to work it for some reason.
> 
> as far as i can tell this whole $100 laptop program is predicated on	
> the idea that technology can solve problems.	 Technology is just a	
> tool, humans solve problems.	If you don't give the humans the	
> knowledge they need to build and sustain their own technological	
> infrastructure, then in my opinion, you are just creating a larger	
> digital divide, you have created a divide based on dependency.   That  
> will tend to develop into class divides much as happened in	
> colonialism, is this project different than a digital colonization?	
> I'm not sure.
> 
> The project that I really liked in this field was the simputer, it	
> had a plan for education and sustainability, but costs got out of	
> hand,  much like the costs of the $100 laptop have.
> 
> 
> 
> On Jun 7, 2006, at 4:11 PM, Andre Brock wrote:
> 
> > This has been an incredibly frustrating conversation.  conversations
> > about inequality and stratification do little to address the fact that
> > there are millions of Africans who already use ICTs and would welcome
> > the chance to have their own laptop for themselves or for their
> > children.
> >
> > don't assume that because its Africa that the need or capacity to use
> > ICTs is somehow diminished because their utilities lack the stability
> > and reliability of Western networks.  After all, the United States has
> > some of the most reliable ICT infrastructure in the world and still
> > has higher rates of illiteracy and ICT-non participation than many
> > smaller, poorer countries.	ICT adoption, in a world increasingly
> > inundated with the awareness of information as a tool, rests not
> > simply upon the possession of the material artifact but much more so
> > on the possibility of using information to improve one's life chances.
> >
> > The comment about using a laptop as a shovel?  completely out of line
> > and insulting.   Would you have made that comment about rural Chinese
> > or Appalachian hill people?
> >
> > Andre
> >
> > -- 
> > Andre Brock
> > PhD Candidate - Library and Information Studies
> > Project Athena Fellow
> > POSSE Mentor - UIUC Posse 2 (217.333.4693)
> > University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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> Jeremy Hunsinger
> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture
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Sara M. Grimes
PhD Candidate/School of Communication
Research Assistant/Applied Communication + Technology (ACT) Lab
Simon Fraser University