Analysis of “The One Laptop Per Child” Project

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Worth of the Project under Consideration
Challenges Connected to the Project
Strong and Weak Sides of Marks and Evans’ Articles
Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

The One Laptop Per Child project is regarded as one of the most famous ones in the technological and media world due to its intentions to help poor children and to introduce products, taking into consideration current conditions (Wikipedia, n.d.). The articles by Jon Evans and Paul Marks present a clear picture of how this project develops, underline strong and weak sides of this idea to provide children with laptops, and describe how human attitudes, inabilities to find out proper financial support, and the desire to earn money in a short period of time may lead to the collapse of dreams and pure intentions. Mr. Marks creates his article in 2008, when the idea to provide children with opportunities uses small and effective computers at schools and homes seemed to be captivating and winning. The work by Mr. Evans appeared at the beginning of 2009, and this author attempted to analyze why this project went wrong and when exactly the mistake was made. In their articles, Marks and Evans evaluate the worth of the One Laptop Per Child project and the opportunity for children to be closer to the developing technological world, explain the difficulties, its organizers face, and make personal predictions of the project’s future and its ability to change and improve this world.

Worth of the Project under Consideration

Technological progress with its ability to produce “unintentional consequences and side-consequences” (Schomberg, 2007 p. 303) is probably one of the most interesting and up-to-date problems to discuss in different types of media. The Internet is considered to be one of the frequently used sources that can change human lives and where novelties of the technological world are described (Comer, 2007 & Osso, 2000); this is why the articles, found in the Internet are not only reliable and informative pieces of work, but also interesting and illustrative sources, where people with any taste may become involve into reading. Marks (2008) admits that more than 600,000 children have already got the opportunity to use XO computers, offered by the One Laptop Per Child project. These computers are created to involve children in our every day life: small sizes, word processing, access to music and games, and Linux operating system promote an easy-to-use technology. The major worth of this project is that children have a chance to study computers, networking system, and other pros of laptops without a threat of finding out some obscene impressions, dirty video or audio files, and other vulgar information. The article by Paul Marks helps to comprehend the reasons of why this project has been created and realize the consequences of such project and their abilities to change the world.

Challenges Connected to the Project

In his article, Jon Evans presents one of the most serious ideas that the project One Laptop Per Child has already gone wrong, and it becomes hard to change the situation. He says that the company has laid off half of the staff, incomes of the company are far from being satisfactory, and the idea to distribute laptops to poor children was doomed to failure from the very beginning (Evans, 2009). And even in spite of the fact that it was “a learning project, not a laptop project” (Maxwell, 2009, p. 95), its failure is discussed on different levels. The peculiar feature of Evans’ article is that he uses own experience to present clear facts. This author cannot help but wonder “at what point did teaching children an interface fundamentally different from the windowing UI by all other computer seem like a good idea to anyone?” (Evans, 2008, para. 5) Such a provoking idea makes this article very interesting for different people. First of all, student should comprehend that a new product offered by a sophisticated scientists fails, this is why it should be interesting to read more information on this topic. Parents should find this article useful as well to comprehend what services and technologies are better to use for their children. And finally, even the developers of this project should not take offense because of these words, as it is another stimulus to make their work better.

Strong and Weak Sides of Marks and Evans’ Articles

The idea to present a laptop project for children becomes more and more popular among society (Sorondo, Malinvaud, & Lena, 2007). The articles by Jon Evans and Paul Marks are one of those media sources, which touch upon the ideas of the One Laptop Per Child project, its strengths and weaknesses, its necessity, and its challenges. The purpose of these two articles is to not only inform and share personal opinions about the concept, but also provide the reader with a chance to comprehend why such a great project undergoes all these changes and suffers losses. Proper structures of the articles, attention to modern human needs, abilities of technology to meet all the demands, and people’s desire to improve their present and future – all this makes the articles captivating. The authors do not try to persuade readers accept their points of view, they just describe and as ordinary people tell about the consequences of events, the mistakes, made by people, and the hopes, inherent to both children and grown ups. Taking into consideration the words by Mr. Negroponte in Marks’ article (2008), it is possible to say that people usually try to bring democracy and improvement their ways, and these authors show that they can do it their ways and do it perfectly in their articles about the One Laptop Per Child project.

Conclusion

Paul Marks and Jon Evans are the authors of the articles about XO computers, offered by the One Laptop Per Child project; they present their ideas and thoughts about the same project with a difference in several months. These works introduce two different perspectives on the project that touches children and adults in many countries. Marks writes about the positive sides of this project, the necessity to support children with any financial background. His words prove that Nicholas Negroponte’s intentions are great indeed, however, the terrible obstacles of the reality prevent this idea’s accomplishment. Evans’ article is another perspective of the project under discussion, where the author admits how thoughtless human decisions and how useless people’s money and efforts can be. These two articles touch the reader to respect human work and ideas, which are directed to help the others and to take care about people’s future and generations. Not each human action may lead to positive and effective results, however, it is not necessary to criticize everything after the first failure but to have enough patience and intelligence to provide the organization with another opportunity to show talent and skills.

Reference List

Comer, D. (2007). The Internet Book: Everything You Need to Know about Computer Networking and How the Internet Works. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Evans, J. (2009). One Laptop Per Child: What Went Wrong. The Walrus Blogs. Web.

Marks, P. (2008). One Laptop per Child Ready for Version 2.0. New Scientist. Web.

Maxwell, J. C. (2009). Put Your Dream to the Test: 10 Questions that Will Help You See It and Seize It. Wheaton, Illinois: Thomas Nelson Inc.

One Laptop Per Child. (n.d). In Wikipedia. Web.

Osso, R. (2000). Handbook of Emerging Communications Technologies: The Nest Decade. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press.

Schomberg, R. (2007). From the Ethics of Technology to the Ethics of Knowledge Assessment. In Assessing Societal Implications of Converging Technological Development by Gerhard Banse. Edition Sigma.

Sorondo, M. S., Malinvaud, E., & Lena, P. (2007). Globalization and Education: Proceedings of the Joint Working Group, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Casino Pio IV. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.

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Analysis of “The One Laptop Per Child” Project

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