A laptop for every student

Nicholas Negroponte has a reputation to maintain as a digital visionary.

Though much of what gets shown at the Media Lab invention hothouse he founded at Massachusetts Institute of Technology seems far-fetched, a lot of the work done there finds its way into commercial products.

So when Negroponte stood up at this month's World Economic Summit in Davos in Switzerland and said he had worked out a way to create a laptop computer for less than US$100 ($138), the great and not-so-great in attendance pricked up their ears.

That's not to say shares in Apple and Toshiba plummeted - the idea still needs a lot of work - but low-priced laptops are on their way.

That produces the expectation that schools will turn even more to computer-based learning - a laptop for every child.

Bad news for Microsoft though - Negroponte says for it to work, the machine will need an open source operating system.

On the hardware side, it will have a back projection screen - clunky, but significantly cheaper than today's LCD screens which can account for half the price of a laptop.

Negroponte may even get rid of the hard disk, taking advantages of decreases in the price of solid state memory.

Add in lower power requirements and cheaper batteries (maybe even a hand crank system), and you have a device which could find a home in any third world village. Or New Zealand schools. It sounds a great idea, but is it what schools need?

Brent Simpson, Apple's national education manager for the primary and secondary school market, says though costs for laptops have come down (a basic iBook costs schools less than $1700) many schools still opt for reconditioned older machines.

"The problem with using those ex-commercial machines is kids demand higher processing power than business users - video, photography and multimedia have become a natural part of what they do," Simpson says.

He says digital media is giving children who struggle with traditional pen and paper methods a new way of expressing themselves.

A few private and elite schools have laptop programmes, where parents buy their children laptops as part of the stationery requirement, but most schools still invest in shared computers. Simpson says many primary and intermediate schools are dropping the computer laboratory idea in favour of pods of laptop computers on wheels (or cows) which are moved around the school.

"The shift in sales at Apple from desktops to laptops is significant," he says.

"The biggest issue for schools has been the way the machines are treated by students, but you have to balance that with the end result. A laptop gives the teacher so much more flexibility than a desktop. They aren't restricted to doing all their lessons in a classroom, or in a corner of the room."

He says overseas research indicates kids can become more motivated by technology in the classroom.

"A prominent feature in some studies was a drop in absenteeism."

As a former teacher, Simpson says schools should think about what they want to do with information and communications technology before they buy it.

That process has been helped by the Government's laptops for teachers programme, which allows teachers to combat any fear they might have of technology and look for ways it can help their teaching.

But Massey University senior lecturer in education Mark Brown sounds a voice of caution about information and communications technologies in schools.

"The jury is still out on its effectiveness, like many things in education," Brown says. "One thing we have learned about technology in society is with every advancement comes social destruction, and at a policy level we should be planning for those costs."

He says schools have an increasingly cluttered syllabus, so time using new technology is coming from some other subject area.

"ICT is supposed to be a lubricant for the so-called new knowledge economy, so it is not neutral. It is part of the wider commercialisation of education, especially the idea everything is for vocational purposes.

"We are told these are skills students will use. I see plenty of students at the supermarket using a barcode scanner, in part-time jobs."

He says technology use is part of globalisation, which is not uncontroversial.

Brown says students are forced to fit their learning into commercial software, rather than using programs designed for their needs. Indeed, many locally grown and child-friendly presentation products are being squeezed out of the market by the likes of Microsoft PowerPoint.

"There is also the danger of the techno-sophistication effect, where parents can be fooled by the product, and not understand the lack of process needed to produce an attractive product these days," Brown says.