Learning Through Trial and Error

The $100 Laptop has been unveiled in Tunisa, going into production next quarter.  I blogged about the need and means to connect these nodes earlier this week.  But there is a revolutionary aspect of the project that is barely recognized.  David Kirkpatrick:

Negroponte's team is seeking not only a technological breakthrough but also a teaching breakthrough. They believe that illiterate kids can, with a little instruction, learn to use computers on their own and then use the laptops to teach themselves to read. After that comes math, history—you name it. Alan Kay, a Xerox Parc veteran, is working with MIT mathematician and educational theorist Seymour Papert to build software that "watches" each student and makes suggestions. Papert's "constructionist learning" approach encourages children to reach conclusions through trial and error.

This breaks known conventions for education and technology, which could have a far greater impact than the commoditization at play.

Comments

[Thomas Wanhoff]

I think that the main problem will not if kids are able to use a laptop but if they were allowed by the government. One of the most things dictators fear are well-educated people - and having no control over flow of information. As long as the internet and the stream of information is controlled in the same way it is today in many african countries, no laptop and no kofi as well as educating kids will solve the problem.

[Matthew Mahoney]

As Seymour Papert says: child is a metaphor for learner, and a learner is a metphor for a person