OLPC

Hey. Sorry this one's late! I completely forgot about the blog. So here it goes.

My favorite part of the OLPC article was the part about the community not wanting to pay for the computers because they saw them just as black boxes with software that they didn't know how to use. This, and the video we watched in class today, just show how scary technology is to those who are technologically illiterate. It's easy for a class of college students, who have grown up looking at a monitor, to question why those on welfare don't apply for jobs, and why they don't continue their education. But for someone who is on the wrong side of the digital divide, like the children on OLPC, and many of those in the United States who are in povery, not having the skills puts them at a huge disadvantage. As we saw in the movie today, the mother tried to get a job multiple times, but was uncomfortable, as she didn't have the technological skills. Even after she was offered a free class, she was resistant to learn. It is next to impossible to teach those who have grown up without computers how to navigate them as efficiently as those who have grown up with them not because they don't have the capacity to learn, but because it is scary and foregin. It is often uncomfortable. The OLPC illustrates this as well, just by the language they use to describe the computers. They see it as a waste of money, because to them, it is a foreign concept.