humanitarian.info

The “laptop for every child” initiative – Nicholas Negroponte’s MIT-based $100 laptop project – has obviously received a lot of publicity, mainly because it’s a great tagline.

But really, why? It seems a little quixotic, in light of repeated research showing that, in the developing world, the usual model is for communal access to computing facilities. Negroponte has also been quoted that “the best education may not come from sitting in a traditional classroom, but rather through independent interaction and exploration,” which also seems to fly in the face of findings that traditional teaching methods actually work quite well.

By the way, these laptops don’t actually exist yet. (sarcasm) A small detail, but one I hope they’ll address at some point (/sarcasm).)