This eSchool News online article reports on a pending breakthrough in extremely low cost computing.
... small, California-based company NComputing, predicts that by 2009 many schools will be able to provide their students with portable, online capabilities for as little as $100 each--and perhaps as little as $30 or $40 per user for non-mobile devices. Wireless capacity, says Dukker, should be a relatively inexpensive bonus by then.The article goes on to talk about schools in Macedonia:
Macedonia's Ministry of Education and Science selected NComputing over four other bidders and will use the company's "multi-user virtual desktop software," along with inexpensive terminals, to provide computing for some 400,000 students, most of whom attend school in half-day sessions.
It makes my head spin thinking about a country full of students ALL having access to Web 2.0 tools. The burning question is this: What happens when these (and any) students are fully empowered to have their own voices? What does education look like then?
1 comment:
Here in Maine, we have a state's worth of kids in grades 7 and 8 with web 2.0 tools. What happens still depends tremendously on the teachers, and still varies profoundly from one classroom to the next. There is no danger of the kids leaving this dimension on a "Childhood's End" scenario, at least in the short term. :) (One interesting thing is that the really savvy teachers come in all ages. It's not just a young teacher's game.) So the answer is... a lot will depend on the teachers.
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