[OLPC-Chicago] laptop backlash in USA

[Atul Varma]

On 5/8/07, Scott Van Den Plas <scottv at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> How can OLPC focus on educational reform and avoid comparison to simply
> placing laptops into a traditional setting?


Well, I imagine it's too late to change the name of the program, but to be
honest the very name "one laptop per child" made me laugh out loud the first
time I heard it.  I think it's because of the connotations that the word
"laptop" brings: it's something that, 10 years ago, was a yuppie status
symbol, and I think that's significant.  Imagine how ridiculous a program
like "one cell phone per child" sounds--even if you try to emphasize the
fact a cell phone can actually be incredibly useful for communication,
especially for societies that don't even have land-line telephones, the fact
is that the first thing that pops into people's heads (well, my head at
least) when they hear the word "cell phone" is a Samsung advertisement about
some new feature-loaded monstrosity that comes with downloadable ringtones.

The word "laptop" comes with almost as much negative cultural baggage as
"cell phone".  When most people see the word "laptop", I'm guessing they
usually think of Norton AntiVirus, Ad-Aware, Microsoft Office, porn, and
Google.  Only one or two of those is generally regarded as a really useful
thing.  And when the word "laptop" and "child" are put in the same sentence,
all I can think of is MySpace and Alge-Blaster, which are things no nation
should spend millions of dollars on.

On the other hand, I *love* the term "Children's Machine", which is what the
OLPC laptop was originally called.  A "machine" is what I had when I grew
up: it didn't help me with school in any direct way, it didn't serve as a
replacement for a good textbook or a great teacher, but it served an
entirely different purpose: it was my personal little lab where I could
create things and tinker with the things others had created.  Social
scientists call it "Bricolage" or "Constructivism", and whatever it is, it's
something that I wish every child in the world had some opportunity to
experience.

So the word "Children's Machine" brings back memories of what I had when I
was growing up: it wasn't portable like a laptop, but it served many of the
same goals, I think, that OLPC is aiming for.  So I guess my two cents to
OLPC are: drop the word "laptop".  And especially don't call it "One Laptop
Per Child", because that phrase alone is going to throw dozens of
assumptions into people's heads and they're just going to laugh at you, like
I once did.

- Atul
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