Discussion on:

Ethiopian kids teach themselves using only tablet computers

I wrote about how special ed students are learning with iPads last year.
http://technologizer.com/2011/12/09/goodbye-textbooks-hello-ipad/

Great story!

Good story but I was wondering how the kiddos charge the tablets. The grass shacks don't look to up like they are very up to date in electricity delivery.

That was the first question I asked when I read the story. The answer, to me, is an essential part of the story.

They had solar units as power which they learned to plug in by themselves

should only be used to reinforce that knowledge and to put that knowledge to use.

Learning a subject is not something that comes naturally, although people learn about things in their environment by accident. But, cumulative knowledge cannot be gained from a simple tablet, no matter how sophisticated the software or device. People learn best by imitating and from first hand instruction and from others' experiences.

The biggest obstacle to learning via tablets or computers, is the discipline which will be lacking with those "students". Once they learn to "play" with them, and perhaps even pick up some real knowledge, they will become bored and tired of them, and they'll be right back at square one, where the need for a "teacher" will be most important. A teacher does not have to be someone with a 4 or 6 year degree from an university, and could be anyone with valuable information that can be shared.

Yes, a teacher would be a handy thing, but that requires a person to be present and willing and able, probably hard to find in Ethiopia... for free, anyhow. Give these kids an internet connection (probably not part of the experiment) and the world is their oyster. I gave up classical learning in college, because it doesn't work for somebody who wants to learn at a faster pace than what's available. Sure these kids will probably play more games than not, but eventually they will ask questions of things they're interested, the tablets could provide them with that. I learned EVERYTHING about my current career (videography / video editing) on the internet! (Not through courses, but through forums, tutorials, etc.) I get paid well to do what I do. The general public was my teacher, and can be theirs too!

Teachers DEFINITELY have their place, but if Ethiopia was that place, they'd be there and this experiment wouldn't be necessary...

can only get so far with those tablets, and the lack of discipline will prevent them from getting much further than learning how to press keys and touch and swipe, to get at the material will they will prefer, which is games. At that point, the tablet will have become a toy, and there won't be anybody to set them straight and to guide them into doing some actual learning of the material which matters.

The tablet idea is just idealistic, and not practical. It would be the equivalent of dropping an airplane in a village of savages, and hoping that they'll learn how to fly the silly thing on their own.

... is no teacher. Can you figure out how to get a teacher for these kids for $35? That's the price of the One Laptop per Child machine that is being manufactured in India.

It may be that a human teacher could do a better job, but this technology is going to make it possible to reach millions and millions of people who would otherwise receive no education. We have a billion illiterate people in this world, one tablet can teach a family. And not just make them literate, but to open the world of information that is available on the web.

Will they get "tired of them"? Do any of us get tired of our computers? Come on....

can't learn from a tablet or computer.

And, the infrastructure, no matter how much wishes for the kids to learn, won't be there in order to guide them beyond learning how to press the keys or touch and swipe on the screen. There is a lot more to "learning" than just handing someone a tool from which to get/gather the material.

Are they using solar power or wind up / bicycle generators to charge the batteries?

Which os are they using? Ubuntu hopefully.

The Xoom is an Android tablet. Android is mentioned in the article, too.
Follow the link to the MIT Technology Review article, it explains that they set up a solar charging station and taught adults in the village how to use it before they handed out the tablets.

The content of education still belong to the past. Education suffers basically from what the report describes as the gap between its contents and living experience of its pupils between the system of values that it preaches and the goals set up by society, between its ancient curricula and the modernity of science.Dissertation

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