| Laptops Work |
| Posted by: Susan Einhorn |
| When I started One Laptop per Child (OLPC) in 2004, I said that owning a connected laptop would help eliminate poverty through education, especially for the 70 million children who have no access whatsoever to schools. I still believe this. But what I have learned since—with two million laptops in 40 countries—is that reducing isolation is an even bigger issue, and that goal will be achieved with technology and only with technology. To lump computers with guns and television, calling them all technology, is naïve at best. Computers are different. They are innately a constructionist medium; you can program them to have behaviors, multiple behaviors. You don’t simply consume or use them for a special purpose. Furthermore, development of any sort—for anybody, rich or poor—is so dependent on the Internet that connectivity is indeed becoming a human right. It is recognized as such by Greece, France, Finland, Spain, and Estonia, and Costa Rica’s supreme court recently affirmed the same. This article is a response to another article found here . |
| Source: Boston Review (MA - USA) | Published: November 9th, 2010 |
| « Browse AALF Headlines |