Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dick Applebaum 
What I'd rather see is for Apple to introduce a special iPad program to deliver on the promise of OTPC (One Tablet Per Child).
...where
opportunity and infrastructure could be provided to
qualified, needy individuals and communities in developing cities and countries.
This could truly honor Steve and his wish to "change the world".
There are a lot of challenges to do this well -- but Apple can do this sort of thing better than anyone...
Here... I'll start the ante with:
The one iPad per Child program -- buy one at full price and Apple (and participating Countries/Communities) will give one for [well-managed] distribution in to a qualified user.
Now, that's what I'd call a worthwhile program for the post-pc era!
Where can I sign up -- Who's with me?
I'd love to track the demographics, activations and accomplishments of a program like this!
I don't know what this obsession is with giving kids computers. It's a solution in search of a problem. Elementary school students don't need a machine to search Google or play games or to waste their minds on Facebook or Twitter or Angry Birds. What they need are the basics: reading, writing, math, history, geography and science plus art/music/creativity, which at that age level should be learned with physical materials: putting pen to paper or playing a real instrument, not a simulation of one.
And an iPad doesn't work by itself. So where are the computers going to come from to sync it? In really poor countries (where they don't even have electric water pumps), where is the electricity going to come from to charge the batteries?
Most kids would be better off if their parents took their devices away from them. We're already raising a generation of hyperactive kids who don't read much, can't write and can't think in longer than 160-character paragraphs.
Many nations of the world, including some third-world nations already beat the U.S. in Math, Science and History.
Quote:
The three-yearly OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which compares the knowledge and skills of 15-year-olds in 70 countries around the world, ranked the United States 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics.
The problem is that many parents (and politicians) equate any use of computer devices (since they themselves know so little about them) with computer literacy. They don't understand that playing Angry Birds or tweeting is not computer literacy and has nothing to do with learning.
