OLPC a Hit in Remote Peruvian Village

mrcgran writes "The Chicago Tribune is running a feel-good story about the effects of OLPC on a remote village in Peru. 'Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago. At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night, they're dozing off in front of them — if they've managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines. Peru made the single biggest order to date — more than 272,000 machines — in its quest to turn around a primary education system that the World Economic Forum recently ranked last among 131 countries surveyed.'"

Re:A shining path to success...

[MPAB]

Was the title [wikipedia.org] chosen intentionally?

Re:A shining path to success...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that Peru is a commie state, your level of education is quite low, we are a free country ( and we have largely defeated those murderous commie pinkos called shining path ( I spit on the ground just thinking about that nefarious name) we have freedom of press, better news reporting than the ones I see in the US, the education outside the big cities is largely low BECAUSE of the lack of government interest, try visiting peru soime day, the biggest source of corruption there is from the government, not the other way around.

Re:I'm sure technology helps, but...

[Catbeller]

A communication link is not a toy. They can learn to read and write and pledge allegiance to their flag, but they previously only could learn what was fed to them. Now they can read EVERYthing. They don't need no, education... Not going to be a comfortable century for the Catholic Church and government censors.

Re:A shining path to success...

[gad_zuki!]

Huh? Are you crazy or ignornat? Peru is a capitalist country since about Fujimori's term in the 80s. The "shining path" that you slyly mention in your post title is a failed marxist movement. I cant imagine the various olpc countries having such a problem with the olpc, especially Perum perhaps with the exception of libya. Peruvians know that communism is a bad idea, doesnt scale, and has been a worldwide failure which usually leads into massive human rights violations and mass starvation, comrade.

Re:I'm sure technology helps, but...

[emilng]

What a sad cynical viewpoint you have.
Who are you to say what the educational needs of "these people" are?
Should they only be taught the skills they need to stay poor as another poster put it?
The goal of the OLPC and any good education program should not be to somehow inject students with information in the hope that they learn something but to enable them to discover the joys of learning on their own.

I think this is a great program because it mirrors my own early interest in computers. We were using the Commodore Pet computers in the computer lab in elementary school. Even with the primitive cassette tape drives and monochrome green monitors of the day it was enough to inspire me to want to have a computer of my own more than anything else in the world. Now did I NEED to have a computer? I don't think so. But as someone reading a site proclaiming "News for nerds, stuff that matters" the need to worship technology goes hand in hand with knowledge. Without a computer at that age I probably wouldn't have had the exposure to the immense amount of knowledge that pushed me in the direction that led me to become a professional developer.

With the OLPC which you called a "little toy," students can shoot photos, make movies, draw, create music and even learn to program. Given these opportunities that they wouldn't normally have I think there is a much better chance of the students growing beyond where they would be with only being taught the bare minimum basic education.

Full report by Carla Gomez, with pictures

[kbahey]

Elsewhere in this thread, you will find a comment [slashdot.org] by jg (Jim Gettys). It has many things that at first I believed to be exaggerations, or just a glowing review from an OLPC staffer.

But, I found that all of what he said is present in detail, and pictures, on Carla Gomez's OLPC in Arahuay [laptop.org].

Really eye opening. Keep up the good work all.

Re:Call me Scrooge but...

[servognome]

Myself, I intend to forbid my kids from going outside and kicking balls. I don't want them to grow up to be jocks.

Or physically fit.
Going outside and kicking a ball isn't necessarily about going on the fast track to sports stardom. Just like being on a computer can teach a child a variety of skills, going outside and kicking a ball around can also do the same.

Re:Hello in Peru!

[DrJimbo]

Feeling a tad defensive? The person you're responding to never mentioned communism, or Peru.

Title of Summary: OLPC a Hit in Remote Peruvian Village

Title of OP: A shining path to success...

The first result of Google(shining path) [google.com] is Wikipedia(Shining Path) [wikipedia.org] which begins:

The Communist Party of Peru (Spanish: Partido Comunista del Perú), more commonly known as the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), is a Maoist guerrilla organization in Peru that launched the internal conflict in Peru in 1980.

Perhaps when OLPC is complete, Negroponte should start OLP/.er.