[Its.an.education.project] Talk in Palazzo Vecchio

[Bernie Innocenti]

I think it was quite a success.  I only screwed up 5 or 6 times
in 15 minutes.

I wasn't planning to mention OLPC's change of direction, but
Richard Stallman, whose keynote was just before mine, had a long
part dedicated to the OLPC, which basically summarized his
opinion as expressed before:

  http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows

The question session was shared between me and RMS.  There were
plenty of interesting questions... including a very silly one:

  "is free software really adequate for anybody?  For kids, even???"

and one I liked a lot:

  "isn't 6 years old too late?  Kids I know are already quite
  comfortable to use the Internet at that age".

I also think it's a shame to wait until 6 when kids clearly enjoy
the laptop already at 4 in many ways.

I was asked several times about contents.  One guy was concerned that
whoever produces the educational contents influences the kids' minds.
I said that this is true, but it's no worse than today's school books.
My idea is that you'd better preload plenty of content on the laptop
and let the kids make their pick.  And share freely what they have
found themselves on the Internet.

-- 
   \___/
  _| o |  Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
  \|_X_|  "It's an education project, not a laptop project!"