Saturday, July 05, 2008

GlobeSpotting with Steve Hamm OLPC: The Educational Philosophy Controversy - BusinessWeek:
"There's no question that some large governments, including China and India, have felt threatened by the Constructionist philosophy, and they rejected the laptops partly because of it. But I think it would be a major mistake to strip Constructionism from the OLPC package just to make the XO laptop more palatable to some unenlightened governments, which are stuck in the stone ages with the command-and-control educational philosophy."
One Laptop Meets Big Business:
"The fate of OLPC is uncertain, and it's too early to judge the effectiveness of the computers. Still, it's possible to draw lessons about the difficulties of such grand-scale social innovation. The group's struggles show how hard it is for a nonprofit made up largely of academics to operate like a business and compete with powerful companies. They also show what happens when differing philosophies of education and beliefs in how software should be created go head-to-head."
Click headline for full article in Business Week.