| > That's why initiatives like those of the winners of the Global Learning X-Prize[1] have shown measurable impact on learning outcomes. [1] https://www.xprize.org/prizes/global-learning Sorry, but I have to challenge your authority. You're saying "measurable impact on learning outcomes" and then linking to same site which doesn't give any evidence of this. As far as I can tell, these prizes are being awarded by people who are all in the same social circles and even their peer reviewed papers don't seem to carry serious outcome analysis. The whole Nicholas Negroponte-Epstein-Ito scandal just shows these people are not interested in the outcome. Again, as he self-described himself "a rich white guy", Negroponte didn't suddenly wake up and care about the welfare and education of children in the third world, nope, not believable, as shown by his subsequent actions. Negroponte's OLPC wasn't his first debacle either.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/71fe/5e987a89dfb7a6e7dbb3dd... Negroponte and his gang of destroyers went from developing country to developing country intent on destroying simple proven-to-work schemes and replacing them with his costly OLPC. He knew that local NGOs desperate requests for funding would be bypassed in favor of his large contracts which could be utilized by bureaucrats to hide corruption. I'm sorry that you wasted your time working on the software. I was tasked to work with the XO-1 and it was an utter waste of our time. We'd have been far better off if those funds had been spent on providing vaccinations, and lunches at school which have been proven to have a vastly better long term outcomes than a underpowered unconnectable amd-geode board with a wonky unusable pixelqi LCD. Honestly, when I first heard of OLPC, I was so excited by all the claims. I remember they sent us screenshots of MIT engineers designing a pulley type charger and they told us the OLPC would run for hours from a few minutes of pulling. It was all fake and total marketing BS. Honestly, after the OLPC, my respect level for MIT Media Lab went down the drain. I realized these people aren't really significantly different than a reasonably educated grad student in a developing country. They just use their accents and mannerisms and social circles to get themselves perceived as being capable of delivering something superior, when in reality they delivered a barely passable netbook. The whole Joi Ito-Epstein pedo scandal has further reinforced my opinion. Developing countries would be better off not buying into the whole MIT aura as it does not seem deserved. It is sad that MIT continues slurping funds from developing countries to do jobs-for-the-boys club type projects. I had thought better of such an institution but I was completely wrong. |