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.
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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)
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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