[IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

[Frederick van Amstel]

Sugar is presented as a challenge to the children: decipher-me or give
up. You can see in the videos I posted when they discover something
new the first thing they do is to show up to their peers. Soon there
are some kids that explore more the possibilites of the systems and
serve the others with support.

> It's clearly stated on the OLPC site that they do not offer tech support
> because they hope users will become savvy enough with the XO to fix issues
> on their own. I think this is ... well, insane. Including an app for writing
> basic Python does not, by any means, ensure that the kids on the other end
> of the OLPC initiative will ever understand it.

They are confident that their system will turn every child into
hackers. I cannot agree on that, but the system is clearly a hacker
artifact and as so, can stimulate hackering activities.

In this case, success is not a mean of technology adoption, but of
technology appropriation. If these people, in their culture and place
can appropriate this techonology to do something they find useful, so
it can be considered sucessful. Let users judge it.

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.{ Frederick van Amstel }. Curitiba ´´ PR
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