Re: for Gilad

Gilad left a question in another post, the answer turn out to be so extend that i had to make it a post.

HJ – I’m curious – do u know of specific areas in Mexico which are planned to receive the device? Any gov’t initiative to buy a bunch of them and distribute?As cool as this project is, I wonder if its not better to use up all that money it cost to develop and put it directly in the hands of those in need – make sure education in their schools is better, make sure kids are given food at school, make sure they have clothing, etc. The basics… before handing them a shiny new laptop.

Hey Gilad, its great to hear from you.Government is actually evaluating classmates and XO’s (the few xo government has are thanks to carlitos fatboy slim) I don’t know officially where is the ministry of education placing the laptops. But we know for sure that Carlos Slim spent 70 million for 250,000 XOs, which will be delivered to Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl in Mexico State, and Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Chiapas.Your question is indeed very polemic pervasive among developing countries, why give a laptop when then have nothing to eat.Well, in México its a difficult question to answer, not all México is a starving community of indigenous people. And while assuring the basic needs for ALL Mexicans should be a priority, such responsibility is in hands of SEDESOL (Ministry for Social Development) whereas Education is for SE (Ministry of Education). I do agree that they are a lot of schools specially in rural communities that need a lot of attention, (i usually sleep in one when i travel to rural areas) both in infrastructure and human capital. I can’t speak for Government but I believe they think an XO will increase the skills that the current education provides, or rather… provide an “global education”. They are currently in some states, projects that involve this two organizations to provide basic attention to children, such as free breakfast.I just realized that even if we delivered XO’s to all children, the education system is not prepared for such a leap. Teachers lack of any information literacy, and are lead by a corrupt leader that has for long stopped their own development.Somehow i fear that XO might end up like the Enciclomedia Project, surrounded by corruption dubious contracts and a terrible operation plan (Enciclomedia director Felipe Bracho, just left us an open message in another post, sorry is in spanish try babel fish of google language tools). They even try to silence a lot of critics out there deleting content from wikipedia.No matter how much we invest in tech, without a clear evolution of our education models, all similar efforts (tech related) will be pretty much a failure.We had a round table last week, within the global knowledge based development week, (the first knowledge cities summit). and discussed the topic “Education for knowledge Societies” we had David Garza, the dean of information technologies and engineering in Monterrey Tech, Cristobal Cobo, the head of FLACSO Education platform and Gabriel Kent Social Media Technologist.David shared with us the phenomena of new technology in education, with each new tech, education organizations thought that all of their problems where solved, (radio, tv, internet, and now ubiquitous computing.) it seems we are about to make the same mistake.Cristobal Cobo, stressed the relevance of developing adaptive experts rather than routine experts, (be able to learn, unlearn, adapt knowledge to new context etc.)And Kent, was merciless with closed intellectual property and non-common education goods.If somehow we can manage to combine this three elements, inside a education model for knowledge society, we will be able to make it.Betty Huergo, head of the American Institute of Monterrey has already started a pilot program and even including a small public school to share their innovations. I think its a great way to go.Ubiquitous Computing, is just a challenge of many that our education revolutions requires.I don’t know if its the most urgent one, but its the easiest one at the moment

• 1) Correct Teaching Minds… maybe i would start by, teaching teachers how to teach, so learners learn how to learn (hahaha, no really) Our teachers still think, that they job is to transfer knowledge. We need to educate our teachers so they can help students to be active and perpetual learners.
• 2) FOSE (free and open source education)… Its IMPERATIVE that we open up the intellectual property that we have and include open knowledge in our education system , it will increase the quality, lower the costs, and help our people understand what knowledge based economies stand for.
• 3) Information Literacy… You would be amazed by the lack of information skills that affects the education system in Mexico.
• 4) Technology Infrastructure… ok once we have all of the above, we can start taking care of the XO, personal media players, and information portals etc.

It can’t be done at the same timeframe for all of Mexico, but at least we should make sure that any effort on any community doesn’t lack of all the components, if not, we will once again, throw our money, time and our children’s future to the trash.To evolve our education system is a relevant issue against poverty, (its the only way we have to fight poverty) while we shouldn’t forget the basic need of our people, we cannot afford not to try to evolve it. I just hope we don’t leave it in hands of the wrong people. Maybe its time the private sector and civil society take problems in their hand instead of trusting our most valuable resource to the government…

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