Saturday, July 25, 2009

What should we do...

Technology could really help with improving one of the most important cognitive skills of the human brain, which is how to process the written word quickly and effectively. What I mean is, how could we enable children to more quickly and effectively learn to read well. Well means both understanding the correct sense of the word they are reading, and also the sense of the entire passage they are reading.

This is especially challenging in a text-scarce environment like an African village. There are few signs, no newspapers lying around, the packages in little boutiques are "behind the counter", there are no Sears catalogues, no Boy's Life, etc.

So, should we choose One Laptop per Child, or a printed book, at this juncture, 2009?

1 comment:

Nina said...

Difficult one this. On a personal level I try to balance both the online and the physical books. For children in text-poor environments, I think the books have to have priority. I think the skills one learns through reading are there for life, and are not un-useful even when using a pc.