MIT’s $100 Laptop vs Mobile Phones

Bill Gates has dissed the $100 laptop project, suggested that people ought to look towards more powerful mobile phones instead. FLOSSE POSSE seems to be saying the same thing too.

As the tool is primary marketed for school – basically for the Ministries of Education – I would like to know a little more about expected educational results and pedagogical ideas behind the MIT’s laptop project. In educational politics one should always ask who is educating whom, why, where and how? It really bothers me that MIT is preaching about having every child a laptop in 2015, would just like that represent development and welfare. Also the explicit pedagogical vision on how the $100 Laptop will be used in schools is very weak.

Interestingly, this guy is doing R&D on using mobile phones as learning tools.

In any case, I think that both mobile phones and mesh WiFi have equal potential for emergent behavior, where new uses are created simply because the process of simply connecting people together will bring new solutions to the table.

The Grameen bank says that mobile phone ladies are helping farmers find out prices in the markets. Others are getting weather forecasts. In particular, mobile phones and video phones break the literacy barrier in a way the conventional PC couldn’t.