[IAEP] [realness] a school is not a building

[Ian Thomson]

Personally, I think the whole approach is wrong. You will never convince
Ministries of Education to stop their "core" activities just because
there are laptops.

The better approach is to show how laptops can enhance education in
schools. 
This should not be an "either/or" approach. We can do both.

As a simple example, children can leave the school earlier after
suitable teaching and complete work on the laptops at home or other
locations. This will free up the school to take a second shift of
students.
Teachers can restructure their teaching to have groups working together
to learn, so freeing them up to take more students.

Ian Thomson
ICT Outreach Section 
Economic Development Division
Secretariat of the Pacific Community
B.P. D5 - Noumea Cedex - 98848
New Caledonia

Phone +687-265419

Fax +687 26 38 18
http://www.spc.int

-----Original Message-----
From: iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org
[mailto:iaep-bounces at lists.sugarlabs.org] On Behalf Of Bernie Innocenti
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 8:36 AM
To: Timothy Falconer
Cc: olpc-haiti at lists.laptop.org; grassroots OLPC;
olpc-open at lists.laptop.org; Squeakland List; Maho 2010; IAEP;
ht2011-winter at waveplace.org
Subject: Re: [IAEP] [realness] a school is not a building

On Sun, 2010-12-05 at 15:18 -0500, Timothy Falconer wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> A favor:  help me make this case (or refute it) as we prepare once
> more for Haiti ... "spend money on training & laptops instead bricks
> and mortar". 
> 
> http://waveplace.com/news/blog/archive/001035.jsp

It's a beautiful thought that touches deep into my hacker spirit, but
the conclusion seems weak: what is it that we are advocating for? Remote
learning? Home-schooling? Having classes under a tree? It's unclear.

The point that you were making with the military canteen vs cooking at
home metaphor is that compulsory education doesn't follow individual
inclinations. Then, the conclusion should state the proposed solution
for this problem.

-- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://sugarlabs.org/

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