Teaching Word, PowerPoint, and Excel should be criminal!

So I got the last post of 2006. I figured I might as well get your attention to start 2007.

Yes, it should be illegal to teach productivity software and count that as technology instruction. That is, at least, what Nicholas Negroponte thinks. You see, Negroponte is the man with the plan for distributing laptops to children around the world. His initiative has already begun to distribute the machines. Originally they were expected to cost $100 each, but the final cost for those initially shipping is around $150. Still, this is a great price for a laptop affectionately (no pun intended) known now as XO (pictured above).

XO can communicate with other XO’s around it via its wireless capabilities. Students can share files between systems due to this ability as well as video conference and chat with the built-in cameras. What is unique is that the machine contains no hard drive. While it does have 512 meg of flash memory, it sports USB 2.0 ports to allow the use of flash drives for nearly unlimited storage capacity. Another unique aspect is the hand crank to energize the power for it. This will be a great benefit in remote regions where power is not common place. The Linux-based machine (nope, no Windows here) uses a journal to help the user organize files instead of folders. It is believed that the journal will allow the user to remember why the file was in use (note the forced thinking skill here). According to CNN’s article, Negroponte says several million XO’s are expected to reach Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Palestinian territory.

So how does that tie in to the crime of teaching productivity software? Negroponte shares this vision in a recent CNN article:
"In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint," Negroponte wrote in an e-mail interview. "I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools." (emphasis mine)

Wow! What a concept! Who would have guessed .... Wait a minute. Making products, communicating, sharing, exploring. That sure sounds familiar. That is part of the Texas Long Range Plan for Technology. Hmmm. If Negroponte can do that with his $150 laptops, imagine what we can do with our $1200 desktops with T1 Internet access and unlimited software access, not to mention all of the FREE Web 2.0 tools out there (such as wikis, blogs, podcasting software, etc). Oh, and don’t forget we have electricity so our students do not have to stop to crank their power back up. Imagine the possibilities.

Credits: photo courtesy of www.laptop.org

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