I RSVP’d to the Berkman Center on a whim a couple of days ago, and I am glad that I went to this luncheon (the first of hopefully many for me). Sitting in a room of thirty people, with Walter sitting at the head of the mahogany table, talking calmly, solidly, professorly, I felt like part of a secluded university lecture. He’s an advocate for an education and he keeps faith in the three elements that I’ve always found necessary to education: learning from risks, learning from mistakes, and learning from experience. Notes are below.
—
OLPC: plan: have impact on learning
lack in opportunity: how do you give kids high quality education, opportunity to learn
school reform: impossible if done top-down; way it will change: generation of children who come to school w/ different skills/expectations: will change school
these laptops: will be part of manufacturing change
title: “Confessions of a Fundamentalist”
passionate about free/open source software
fundamentalist about: learning itself: what are the best ways to position/plant seeds of learning
constructionism: role for computation as thing to think with; something children should engage with
not just access to knowledge, but appropriation of knowledge
learn through doing; what’s a better tool for doing than a computer
want to engage people in things they’re passionate about
child-centric v. teacher-centric view of education/learning
everyone’s a learner, everyone’s a teacher
humans: expressive & social
proprietary v. free/open source
a = deals with delivery of knowledge
b = trying to move over the standard deviation: users: people who appropriate, rather than just access, knowledge
open source: culture of appropriation: cultural value
service-oriented stuff: not very good
phones: about service, not construction: service model: example: people don’t write programs or essays ON their phone
point: social nature of phones
optimal situation for learning: phones: lacking in other attributes (teaching, learning, expressive)
example: Dynabook, with background
building platform: skewing odds to ~ activity happening
1. build
2. critique/reflect
3. iterate (go back to step 1)
learning: wants to be free
culture around open source –> how do you decide about governance? difference between governance and engagement of community in critical discourse
engaging in collaboration, engaging in critique
tools to do this: lacking in education (maybe not university ed, but definitely in primary ed)
example:
Nigeria: English = official language, but spoken: probably 3rd largest
kids: built spelling dictionary for Igbo
Sugar: primary user experience on OLPC
at core of Sugar: notion of activity
before: run applications; turned “application” into “activity”: enhancement of application: 1) brings notion of sharing/sociability into the open: always present; presence of others is always with you; eg. ability to share document between users, whether online or offline; 2) journal: file system that automatically saves everything you do: never have to save/back up; creating a diary/portfolio of your work; place to watch your progress, have conversation with another about your progress: importance of progress, march through time: important feature of learning; 3) transparency: no ceiling; music: network with other laptops to play music, can compose music, make own instruments
Python: language that underlies Sugar: open
[why cell phones will never replace computers: memory capacity]
example: want to change metrics inside Sugar so that kids can measure in anything, any metric they imagine
David Hilbert: 23 problems of mathematics
23 problems facing people in technology & learning:
- how to make the network work?
- make code that is malleable yet won’t lead to malware
- better tools for localization & internationalization
- power: use a scarce resource better? even if you’re using calories to crank in power, better use them intelligently
- construction in scale
- economics: correlating economic development with learning: hypothesis or fact that learning leads to economic development
- governance
(will be blogged)
—
Q&A:
Q: definition of free
A: not as in beer
comes down to appropriation: example: learn to code by copying code, breaking it down & changing it
Q: small inexpensive laptops: ie. Asus EEE
ultimately: help cause of learning via computers by making hardware more available, or hurt it by losing sight of mission of learning
A: definitely help it; $200 for laptop, versus $10,000/year on education; in developing countries: maybe $200/year on education
Q: cultural implications behind OLPC
A: one item of 23: understand culture vs. construction; constructionism: about people, about how they learn: based on Piaget’s constructivism
teacher: having more fun
Q: resistance — proprietary companies: don’t like idea of open source; how does interaction of proprietary companies and developing nations play out?
A: big social/economic battles in next few decades; people that go with open source: will do better in the long run;
Q: concern: not if enough laptops will be available in 1 week, but how many available in 5 years
A: OLPC: trying to keep the pressure on: so that industry won’t slip back; 5 affordable laptops announced in the last week
if we replace chalkboards with laptops: loss of value
Q: modern edu: these principles aren’t being taught
A: part of education: should be dirt on hands experience
lots of children, but “laptop” is part of OLPC so don’t forget that
Q: what is it that drives discussion: people, community, tools? what assumptions drive the balance and what we can do about it?
A: open source projects: rely on developers but also multiple volunteers; don’t think many are in it for the glory, but think they can make a difference
Q: people seem more willing to work on things and jump into them if they’re not shiny/new; how does design seem to enable more interest in working inside the laptop?
A: thought about it in slightly different way; skins: can replace set with more inviting images; other issue: don’t want things to break, but want people to explore: how do you make environment where you can find that balance?; instead of make it hard to break, make it easy to repair, so that people are willing to take risks and make mistakes
Thanks for the great notes and thoughtful take on the talk, Alex — and we certainly hope to see you again at future lunches!