Quote:
Originally Posted by alex_d
I feel that my most precious argument, the one that is most likely to push the buttons of many people here, is that adults shouldn't try to project their feelings about computers on children. Many adults feel frustrated and intimidated by computers. Figuring out how to do something may feel like worse than a chore, like pure stress. They enjoy the simplicity of the macintosh.
And they feel that giving a kid a computer with that push-button, appliance-like simplicity will do them a service. Will relieve their stress. Make them happy.
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I think that's a most excellent point, alex_d. I have to deal with a lot of folks who are intimidated by computers too, and I hadn't considered what effect that sort of attitude might have on the thinking people who are trying to design a computer that is "universally inclusive" for children who've never seen one before.
I don't know a great deal about the folks who are designing the OLPC device, so I don't know how prone they might be to that particular mental pitfall ... but I think it's
at least as likely that they might fall into it by over-compensating, which could produce the same result.
The folks I deal with who are the most difficult are the ones who seem to think that their high-degree 'educations' (M.D., Ph.D., or mudfud for short) mean that
everything should be simple for them, and if it's not, then there must be something wrong with whatever it is they're finding not simple enough.
Maybe I should try them out on one of your five-button models, that might be right up their allies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by alex_d
The OLPC is not a computer. It is an appliance. The word 'computer' is very powerful, perhaps even deserving of its hype. So we must apply it carefully. The Eee, though, is a real computer. And that's why I think it has immeasurably more merit than the OLPC. It has the potential of changing these kids' lives, same as the computer (and windows and all the applications that are run on it) has forged my own.
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I'd agree with that, but the edge that the OLPC has is that it's designed to operate in a situation with ... low infrastructure. I'd love to see something with its level of self-sufficiency in that regard, that had capabilities more in-line with what the 3-E boasts. That'd be something.
