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Sunday, October 16, 2005
Digital Divide
[via Reuben Abraham] John Daly writes: "The rich countries are spending more on ICT, and the investments are buying knowledge and information processing capacities that potentially increase productivity and improve targeting of efforts. The increase in productivity, in relatively egalitarian rich societies, benefits large numbers of people, helping them further away from all aspects of poverty. This ICT investment provides a competitive advantage for the rich countries versus the poor. The real digital divide is not measured in personal computers and cell phones, but in the power that people and societies have to appropriate ICT for their benefit."
Computers and Education
Shrikant Patil quotes Lowell Monke: "At the heart of a child’s relationship with technology is a paradox—that the more external power children have at their disposal, the more difficult it will be for them to develop the inner capacities to use that power wisely. Once educators, parents, and policymakers understand this phenomenon, perhaps education will begin to emphasize the development of human beings living in community, and not just technical virtuosity. I am convinced that this will necessarily involve unplugging the learning environment long enough to encourage children to discover who they are and what kind of world they must live in. That, in turn, will allow them to participate more wisely in using external tools to shape, and at times leave unshaped, the world in which we all must live."
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