One Tablet Per Child Program Begins In Thailand 90
societyofrobots writes "Thailand has now put the first 50,000 of a planned 800,000 tablets into the hands of elementary students. Each tablet costs only $80/unit, runs Android ICS, and was manufactured in China. Opponents claim it to be a very expensive populist policy to 'buy votes', while proponents argue it could bypass the root causes of poor education in the country: outdated books and unskilled teachers."
Good. (Score:1, Insightful)
Teach them, young, to be CONSUMERS of content; not creators of it!
... just like the Joe Sixpacks ? (Score:2)
Teach them, young, to be CONSUMERS of content; not creators of it!
You mean, just like the Joe Sixpacks ?
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Yes, marking a nation with such labels is not flame-bit !!! You would possibly rule that for the next 50 years they provide entertainment for your dodoo.
Take a look at this : http://www.scimagojr.com/compare.php?c1=TH&c2=SG&c3=IL&c4=ID&area=0&category=0&in=it [scimagojr.com]
Thailand has a very high increase on scientific products year on year and 2 of their universities are in the top 200 universities of the world.
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So your tourist view of a country gives you the authority to generalize an entire population (69 million). Do you speak any Thai languages? Have you read any indigenous poetry? Have you employed scientific social research methods?
I'm sorry, but it is flamebait, offensive and racist to call an entire country a population of uncreative service-people.
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Thanks for announcing you're a sex tourist, "Jobless Fellatio"...
Can't you create content on a tablet? (Score:3)
Tablets can run programming languages, drawing programs, word processing, etc. Why can't they create content on it?
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Tablets can run programming languages, drawing programs, word processing, etc. Why can't they create content on it?
Of course they can create content on a tablet. It's not as good as a Mac Pro, but that was never an option anyway.
And the better question is: How much content can you create using paper textbooks? Because that's the option really, inexpensive tablets or paper textbooks.
steveha
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Teachers are the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Teachers are the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
How much tools do they really need for elementary school anyway?
We had chalkboards, and 20 year old books (usually had to share them, also)... I thought the schooling quality was fine on average. Some teachers weren't as good as others.
It's all about the teachers and curriculum, everything else is just fluff. Extras can be nice, but they aren't going to make bad teachers and bad mandatory material magically effective and interesting/fun/whatever.
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Using google to find information is a lot of what they need to learn.
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Maybe 'how much tools' is a product of my elementary education. 'Tools' felt uncountable for some reason, but obviously isn't... :-p
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You make a good point: an often-missed reality with any humanitarian project is making it holistic - covering all the bases. Throwing money at a problem fixes nothing, and usually makes things worse, unless you do it in a way that fits with the culture, has required infrastructure, training, follow-up, etc.
So here, the tools are great... as long as there's someone who knows how to use them, and the necessary resources available to support them, and the software for them to use, and the power and internet i
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Even a powerful and flexible tool is useless if teachers don't know how to use it. I had the same experience with Multimedia Interactive Whiteboards at my daughter school: great potential, but teachers ignore the features and have no practice.
I agree, in principle, very strongly. However, I don't feel like criticizing this move very much, given the relatively low price of the device. I find it more laughable the initiative of some US schools to give iPad 2's to highschool pupils.
Opponents should be careful... (Score:2)
they have more to worry about if elementary school students are voting!
A great step (Score:4, Interesting)
for humanity.
Even if 80% of the teachers lack knowledge, with this gear, at least the kids stand a chance of growing up with technology, and can get online somehow, and get access to vast amounts of information, the young minds so heartily crave.
Sure, a bunch of them will be sold off by poor families, and a lot will not know what to do with them, but it's a start. This is VERY forward thinking from the Thai gov. and very promising, never mind the votes, this will be great for their people. This will give the kids a taste of technology, and who knows? Maybe that's exactly what's needed to get just ONE kid off to become that great engineer in the future, if so - it's already a success.
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for humanity.
Even if 80% of the teachers lack knowledge, / Sure, a bunch of them will be sold / a lot will not know what to do with them / Maybe that's exactly what's needed to get just ONE kid off to become that great engineer in the future...
It's a simple cost benefit analysis. The OLPC project has had problems in some areas and successes in others. The project started out with a wholistic set of ideas to block theft; to ensure teaching materials were available; to make the systems useful. The project the followed up with volunteers who went out, realised what problems there were and reacted to them. It still gets lots of criticism. It's an interesting balance but it looks like, on average, it has done good. If this project comes in withou
Ahh the fetish of computers ..... (Score:3)
The assumption with little evidence that putting computers in classrooms at great expense is better than spending the money elsewhere is astounding. Just because alpha geeks enjoy "learning" with computers most people use them as a passive tool. This is not that such tools are good or bad as general consumer items but it is hard to claim that they are a miracle cure for an education system. It is about as a ludicrous claim as "Jesus Saves"
Ironic Comment (Score:2)
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Considering you are typing this on a computer, connected to the internet. Face it Luddite, ebooks, internet, computers, tablets, are the FUTURE, and the future is now.
None of which addresses the point that spending money on computers might not be good value in this case. P.S. Look up irony, you might learn something.
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Geeks enjoy learning with computers because somewhere along the lines we were encouraged to do so at a young age...
Kids are naturally inquisitive, and when given the opportunity to explore what something is capable of that's exactly what they will do.
The problem is when people are exposed at the wrong age, or to devices which are too limited, or to devices which discourage people from taking them apart and experimenting (either with dire warnings, or too easily breaking and too difficult to repair)... In th
Unskilled Teachers? (Score:3, Insightful)
If the issue is unskilled teachers, I don't think tablets can make miracles.
Rather, invest in long-distance video conferencing gear!
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Internet access via tablets can enable distance education of this sort:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRtujwa_b8 [youtube.com]
I can't seem to find the specs, but I doubt they come with 3G. How is free WIFI in populous parts of Thailand? rural parts? Devices are a good thing, but without Internet access or some infrastructure for getting educational content to students they will not be useful.
Tablets won't solve a problem with teachers (Score:2)
instant access to "free" information... (Score:4, Insightful)
...that's what the children will have, for better or worse.
wikipedia does quite nicely replace either outdated/beat-up textbooks or overcomes a text book shortage.
even if the teachers are not replaced, those who can and want to learn, can do so with the tablets :D
Bangkok Post (Score:2)
The caption in the Bangkok Post article reads 'A worker loads boxes labelled "One Tablet Per Child" on to a truck at the Education Ministry in Bangkok. The ministry sent off trucks on Wednesday to deliver the first batch of 55,000 tablet computers to primary schools in eight provinces.'.
Are they saying that all 55,000 boxes are currently sitting at the Education Ministry in Bangkok? Such logistical half-assedness would add at least a dollar a unit to the final cost I should imagine. Or more likely it was
Sounds good to me (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't a magical silver bullet; nothing is. But these tablets cost $80 and are planned to last for three years; that's less than $30 per year, and then the student gets to keep the 3-year-old tablet. The tablet can serve as a textbook, or can run interactive lessons, and the article says the Thai education ministry is developing tutorial content that will run on the tablets.
Like the OLTP XO computers, these tablets will have no moving parts, and no cooling fan. If they are well-made, they should be reliable even in Thailand's climate; and they may be more cost-effective than paper textbooks.
P.S. It's amazing to me how so many people here can speed-read a summary and go straight to the dismissive comments about how this won't solve anything, etc. Presumably the Thai education ministry studied the problem and came to the conclusion that these tablets would be worth buying. Maybe you really are that much smarter than the Thai education ministry... or, maybe you shouldn't be so quick to make a snap judgement.
steveha
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Presumably the Thai education ministry studied the problem and came to the conclusion that these tablets would be worth buying. Maybe you really are that much smarter than the Thai education ministry... or, maybe you shouldn't be so quick to make a snap judgement.
For starters, read this:
BANGKOK (AFP) — High school test results in Thailand have revealed a failure rate of more than 80 percent in mathematics, biology and computer studies — among the teachers. The failure rates for teachers who took exams in their own subjects were about 88 percent for computer studies, 84 percent for mathematics, 86 percent in biology and 71 percent in physics, the education ministry said. And almost 95 percent of about 37,500 secondary school directors did not score a pass mark in English and technology, according to the ministry. The poor results have ignited controversy in Thailand about educational standards. “Even teachers fail, so how can we raise the quality of students?” Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat was quoted as saying by the Bangkok Post newspaper. More than 84,000 teachers and school directors took the exams, the first of their kind.
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Smarter? Probably not. Less prone to grandstanding? Probably. Less corrupt? Certainly.
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I live in Thailand. For those who don't the tablets were one of Prime Minister Yingluck's election promises. There is at least an element of grandstanding to it. It's the Shinawatra clans basic modus operandi for winning elections - high visibility populism.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's not a good idea.
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Once the tablets are deployed, the power to instantly update the curriculum via internet updates is powerful.
Unfortunately there are a large number of schools in Thailand, mostly those in rural areas that don't even have power let alone the internet. For example the school closest to me has bathrooms and storage inside but the two classrooms only have a roof and one wall with a blackboard on it.
Also if you read the specs these tablets have a battery life of 2-3 hours, if there is no power at the school you better hope the students have it at home and remembered to charge their tablet. In a way this is one thin
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Also if you read the specs these tablets have a battery life of 2-3 hours, if there is no power at the school you better hope the students have it at home and remembered to charge their tablet. In a way this is one thing OLPC got right with the XO1 include a hand crank.
Actually, the hand crank thing was just an idea and never implemented.
Instead of a hand crank, they decided to go with a "yo-yo" charger, not attached to the laptop at all. The "yo-yo" would allow kids to use leg muscles, rather than (weaker
Anecdotal evidence (Score:4, Informative)
A computer hacker in thailand (Score:2, Interesting)
I live in thailand and in the last 2 years. 2 things have got done.
#1 3G acesss.
#2 Tablets in the hands of kids.
That is a hell of a improvement.
The previous military goverments parlament. Keep in mind thailand is still not a democracy.
They met twice.
#1 1 time was to give themselves a raise.
#2 Start a war with cambodia.
For the record these tablets where supposed to be in the hands of the kids over 2 years ago. Before current goverment was in place.
Nuff said.
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"still not a democracy"
And you want to see a democracy why?
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Geez (Score:2)
I'm so old that when I read "One Tablet Per Child Program" I thought it meant there was a shortage of some medication.
I'm going back to bed.
perspective (Score:1)
in rural thailand 80 usd is roughly what it costs to rent a small house for a month
the saga continues (Score:2)
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Even if he wasn't directly behind it, he's the father of the OLPC idea, which has been nothing but a waste of resources in regions than can ill afford it.
In the USA.. (Score:2, Funny)
The USA is also moving towards one tablet per child except here it is called Ritalin.
Is this an official OLPC project? (Score:2)
Lesson in slow responses (Score:2)
1) Waiting for a train that is cancelled
2) Watching paint dry
3) Racing snails with chronic fatigue syndrome through molasses
That's what Chinese tablets running ICS are like.
Missing the point (Score:3)
I don't know if anyone has been keeping track, but there's this thing called the internet where you can get a really good education for free. Tablets will give children access to this internet.
We currently have four major players in this arena:
This is in addition to all the universities which are putting lecture videos online, along with course materials and (in a few cases) the textbook content. Oh, and youtube videos of lectures, and the zillion-and-one websites explaining whichever subject you're interested in. Google "relativity" or "tensors" sometime - see if you can find an explanation that works for you.
An experiment in India has shown that when you give uneducated, poor children access to an internet-connected computer they figure things out on their own. Complex, interesting, and difficult things that you might not expect an ignorant user to manage. (Such as typing a thank-you note without access to a keyboard.)
This is all you need, kids will figure things out for themselves. Having a teacher to nudge them in the right direction, or help them over a difficult part is just gravy.
Kids are voracious learners, and have always been. Abe Lincoln used to sit at home practicing his "ciphering" (arithmetic) by drawing numbers on a shovel with charcoal. Over and over, until he got comfortable with the math. All kids do this - it's in the nature of growing up.
Just giving kids access to material will be a huge leap over the current situation. Schools and teachers are extra.
Is It Me (Score:1)
Is it me, or are the only people who really believe tablets are useful in a professional business/school environment people who don't really understand technology? We were issued iPads at my work and I've used it exactly ZERO times in the last year. It takes longer to take notes on the iPad and it's slower than writing on a pad. Then there's the problem of synchronizing email between the iPad and the desktop. Most of the time the boss, who had the bright iPad idea, has to be guided through the most simple o
Unnecessary redundant additional extra word. (Score:2)
"Each tablet costs only $80/unit"
Umm, does the summary really need to say "$80/unit" rather than just "$80", seeing as it already states at the start of the sentence that this is the cost of "each tablet"? Unless each single tablet can be a variable number of units...
Pad as a teaching device (Score:2)