[IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric

Hi Chunka

It's basically "hunting and gathering" vs. "agriculture". Or "parisitism" vs
"symbiosis". These are built into human nervous systems by genetics, but it is
still surprising given that we've had agriculture for more than 10,000 years,
and one would think it would be more generally noticed and understood.

Here is an example from today that is like the impulse and vision that propelled
the 12 year effort that invented personal computing and the Internet.

The idea reaches back to the 60s and 70s, but an above threshold invention was
not accomplished.

Children need to be helped to learn important things, such as reading and
writing, mathematics and science and engineering. The helpers need to understand
the subject matter, and also how to help the learning process with individual
learners. Studies have shown that for many learners, just lowering the
learner-to-helper ratio makes an enormous difference.

For the US, it has been calculated that it is not possible to create enough
knowledgeable K-8 teachers for math and science over the next 25 years, even for
the 30:1 student teacher ratios we have today. It has been estimated that this
problem is much worse in the developing world.

Vision: It is a destiny for interactive computers to become sensitive expert
learning helpers for many important parts of human knowledge which children need
to learn.

This is an extension of what the printing press has meant for learning. There
aren't enough Socrates' and other great teachers to go around, but important
parts of their magic can be captured in print, replicated and distributed by the
millions. This allowed more ordinary teachers plus great-books to do some of
what great teachers can do. And this changed the world.

Computers can represent books and all other media, and they should be able to
actively help us learn to read them (even if we start off not being able to read
at all). And we should be able to go much farther beyond the book, to make
computer helpers that can also understand and answer many questions in ways that
extend our learning rather than undermines the growth of our minds.

These computer helpers also help the human helpers. It's not about replacing
humans (even if they don't exist) with computers, but making a more powerful
learning environment using technology to help.

This is a hard vision to pull off, just as personal computing was. The funding
needed to be long term in the 60s because much had to be done to (a) even find a
version of the vision that could serve as "problem and goals", and very
importantly (b) to "grow" the grad students and PhDs, who as second and third
generation researchers, were able to frame the problem and do the inventions.

The payoff has been enormous. The inventions at PARC alone have generated about
$30 Trillion dollars of wealth worldwide (and yes Xerox's return on their
investment in PARC has been more than a factor of 200 (from the laser printer
alone).

The great funding in the 60s was done mostly by the government, and for personal
computing and pervasive networks was spread over more than 15 universities and
research companies who formed a cooperative research community. (The story of
this is told in "The Dream Machine" by Mitchel Waldrop).

The funders today do not have a lot of vision, and they have even less courage.
A new kind of user interface that can help people learn is not just for the very
important needs of education around the world, but will also open up learning in
business, defense, and for consumer design and products.

How much would this cost? A critical mass of institutions and researchers could
be supported starting at about $100M/year. By contrast, the estimated US
spending for Iraq and Afghanistan for 2011 is about $170B. So we are talking
initially about less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the cost of these wars.

What's the hitch. First there is risk. It is a very difficult problem. But I
think a bigger hitch is that it is likely to take more than 10 years to pull
off. This is longer than any corporate or government cycle.


Perhaps a larger hitch lies in one of the biggest changes in funding today as
compared to the 60s. There is no question that a funder of large research monies
for high risk projects is "responsible". Today's funders are so worried about
this responsibility that they confuse it with "control" and tried to insert
themselves in the decision processes. This is a disaster (they are funders not
researchers, and the more visionary and difficult the projects, the less their
opinion can be at all germane.)

The 60s funders made no such error. They said "we can't evaluate projects behind
the Beltway, so we'll fund people not projects". This required trust in both
directions, but it is a proper and good allocation of expertise.

The other thing that the 60s funders pointed out when queried by worried
politicians, is that they were "playing baseball" not "going to school", meaning
that given the high risk and high payoff of the research, they only needed to
bat .350 and "the world will be changed"). Today's funders want certainty, and
this is engineering at best, and this does not change the world because the hard
important problems never get worked on.

Best wishes

Alan








________________________________
From: Chunka Mui <chunka.mui at devilsadvocategroup.com>
To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
Cc: Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com>; "america-latina at squeakland.org"
<america-latina at squeakland.org>; "squeakland at squeakland.org"
<squeakland at squeakland.org>; Maho 2010 <maho at realness.org>; IAEP SugarLabs
<iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios
docentes <olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; olpc bolivia
<olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; OLPC Puno <olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Sat, February 5, 2011 1:31:45 PM
Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric

Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric
Alan  --

I?ve seen many organizations claim to be committed to ?innovation,? while
eschewing ?invention.?  Everyone harvesting while refusing to sow makes for bad
strategy, both societal and corporate.  I guess it?s ?rational? in some
short-term sense and another example of the free rider problem.  There?s an
insidious side-effect as well.  By rejecting invention, those organizations
implicitly or explicitly restrict the consideration set for even incremental
innovation.  It?s hard to reach for even small aspirations if you?re always
being told to not be ?too far out.? So my experience matches your general point.
 

I don?t make much experience, however, with the specific example that you were
referring to.  I?d like to hear more about your perspective about the guiding
principles pre and post ?82, and how each set of leaders/funders rationalized
their viewpoints.  I?d also be interested in your sense of the trend on this
topic, since we have a new generation of high tech corporate leaders and funders
and, clearly, another round of massive wealth being generated.

Regards,
Chunka



On 2/5/11 1:11 PM, "Alan Kay" <alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:


Hi Chunka,
>
>I've been challenged on this point more than once, and have challenged back to
>come up with one invention that was done after 1980 that matches up to the top
>10 done before 1980.
>
>
>This has not happened. I've been able to show the prior art for all
suggestions. ________________________________
From: Chunka Mui <chunka at cornerloft.com>
Alan -- Could you say more about this point?  Surely there's been tons of CS and
IT funding since '82, both govt funding to universities and massive research
budgets at msft, hp,


Regards,
Chunka



Cheers,
>
>Alan
>
>
________________________________
From:Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com>  


--
The Devil?s Advocate Group ? We Stress Test Your Innovation Strategies
http://www.devilsadvocategroup.com

Voice:  +1.312.870.0727  <== Note new phone number
Fax:     +1.877.350.0869


     
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A lot of thought provoking ideas listed in one mail. Wow!

On Sunday 06 Feb 2011 5:20:15 am Alan Kay wrote:
> For the US, it has been calculated that it is not possible to create enough
> knowledgeable K-8 teachers for math and science over the next 25 years,
> even for the 30:1 student teacher ratios we have today. It has been
> estimated that this problem is much worse in the developing world.
Student-Teacher ratio is about teaching not learning. I learnt the hard way
that a different mind-set is needed to work with learning.

Parents and Family seems to have done a fairly good job in the 0-6 year range.
When we get into the next stage (6-12), the learning environment breaks down.
Mothers don't go around with a growth chart and taunt their babies with "You
should have been crawling by six months. You will get a C for your crawling.
Sit facing the wall for the next five minutes!" ;-). In India at least,
families are held responsible for their children's development. In the next
stage, why not hold teachers responsible for outcomes but facilitate them to
achieve their goals using whatever they find appropriate?

In one exercise, we worked with teachers across 120 rural schools near
Bangalore to attain one specific goal, 'get every student to read Kannada and
Division by 7th grade' using whatever means at their disposal, even if they
have to take assistance from locals who are not teachers but like being with
children. Teachers took the help of external evaluators to detect non-learners
in June to create a target set. When the eval was repeated six months later,
the number dropped to near zero in 102 schools. Other schools are now catching
up. The effect of empowerment spilled over into other topics and boosted the
overall morale of students. The marginal funding required for this exercise
was trivial.

> Computers can represent books and all other media, and they should be able
> to actively help us learn to read them (even if we start off not being
> able to read at all).
Children will learn to read only when they have to read to learn. The thirst
for knowledge has to go beyond what they can get from their family or school.
This is a challenge in countries like India with dense population and an oral
tradition. The chasm between pre-literate to semi-literate is quite large.

A teacher in a rural public school narrated a case of a 6th grade student who
wouldn't write or read and was at the bottom grade. When we introduced
computers into the school, he was attracted to TeX morph in Etoys that typeset
multilingual texts. He played with this morph sporadically over four months to
generate various letter shapes and words (including misspellings) and then
broke into fluent writing and reading. He had stumbled on a strong reason to
read. Once he crossed the chasm, he stopped using the computer and switched
over to books. Computer became a complex device. This incident had a big
impact on the teacher who was, at that time, in her third trimester of her
pregnancy.

> The great funding in the 60s was done mostly by the government, and for
> personal computing and pervasive networks was spread over more than 15
> universities and research companies who formed a cooperative research
> community. (The story of this is told in "The Dream Machine" by Mitchel
> Waldrop).
Given the scale and scope of education, public funding and social
participation is the only solution. Private funding comes with too many
strings attached :-(.

Subbu

I don't think of "teachers" or "teaching" as dirty words. And I don't separate
them by age group, profession, or whether parents or not. (Do I have to say that
good teachers facilitate learning ....?)

There are lots of poor teachers in the world (for many different reasons), but
it's important to understand that no child ever invented Calculus, nor did any
adult until very recently in our 200,000 years on the planet. Good teachers are
vital, and most especially for the powerful invented ideas and knowledge that is
less strongly built into our genetically and culturally fashioned brain/minds.

So we need good teachers from our peers, our parents, our schooling systems, our
vocations, our delights, etc.

Best wishes,

Alan




________________________________
From: K. K. Subramaniam <kksubbu.ml at gmail.com>
To: squeakland at squeakland.org
Cc: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>; Chunka Mui
<chunka.mui at devilsadvocategroup.com>; voluntarios y administradores OLPC para
usuarios docentes <olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; "america-latina at squeakland.org"
<america-latina at squeakland.org>; Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com>; Maho 2010
<maho at realness.org>; olpc bolivia <olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; IAEP
SugarLabs <iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org>; OLPC Puno <olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, February 6, 2011 6:36:38 AM
Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric

A lot of thought provoking ideas listed in one mail. Wow!

On Sunday 06 Feb 2011 5:20:15 am Alan Kay wrote:
> For the US, it has been calculated that it is not possible to create enough
> knowledgeable K-8 teachers for math and science over the next 25 years,
> even for the 30:1 student teacher ratios we have today. It has been
> estimated that this problem is much worse in the developing world.
Student-Teacher ratio is about teaching not learning. I learnt the hard way
that a different mind-set is needed to work with learning.

Parents and Family seems to have done a fairly good job in the 0-6 year range.
When we get into the next stage (6-12), the learning environment breaks down.
Mothers don't go around with a growth chart and taunt their babies with "You
should have been crawling by six months. You will get a C for your crawling.
Sit facing the wall for the next five minutes!" ;-). In India at least,
families are held responsible for their children's development. In the next
stage, why not hold teachers responsible for outcomes but facilitate them to
achieve their goals using whatever they find appropriate?

In one exercise, we worked with teachers across 120 rural schools near
Bangalore to attain one specific goal, 'get every student to read Kannada and
Division by 7th grade' using whatever means at their disposal, even if they
have to take assistance from locals who are not teachers but like being with
children. Teachers took the help of external evaluators to detect non-learners
in June to create a target set. When the eval was repeated six months later,
the number dropped to near zero in 102 schools. Other schools are now catching
up. The effect of empowerment spilled over into other topics and boosted the
overall morale of students. The marginal funding required for this exercise
was trivial.

> Computers can represent books and all other media, and they should be able
> to actively help us learn to read them (even if we start off not being
> able to read at all).
Children will learn to read only when they have to read to learn. The thirst
for knowledge has to go beyond what they can get from their family or school.
This is a challenge in countries like India with dense population and an oral
tradition. The chasm between pre-literate to semi-literate is quite large.

A teacher in a rural public school narrated a case of a 6th grade student who
wouldn't write or read and was at the bottom grade. When we introduced
computers into the school, he was attracted to TeX morph in Etoys that typeset
multilingual texts. He played with this morph sporadically over four months to
generate various letter shapes and words (including misspellings) and then
broke into fluent writing and reading. He had stumbled on a strong reason to
read. Once he crossed the chasm, he stopped using the computer and switched
over to books. Computer became a complex device. This incident had a big
impact on the teacher who was, at that time, in her third trimester of her
pregnancy.

> The great funding in the 60s was done mostly by the government, and for
> personal computing and pervasive networks was spread over more than 15
> universities and research companies who formed a cooperative research
> community. (The story of this is told in "The Dream Machine" by Mitchel
> Waldrop).
Given the scale and scope of education, public funding and social
participation is the only solution. Private funding comes with too many
strings attached :-(.

Subbu



     
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On Sunday 06 Feb 2011 8:13:55 pm Alan Kay wrote:
> I don't think of "teachers" or "teaching" as dirty words. And I don't
> separate  them by age group, profession, or whether parents or not. (Do I
> have to say that good teachers facilitate learning ....?)
Neither do I. The debate around good vs. bad teachers is a distraction that
gets us nowhere close to ensuring that all our students get education. The
real debate should be around empowerment of people who are assisting learners.
What we found is that teachers, even in crowded schools, were able to find
their own resources to ensure that their wards acquired basic skills.
Learning happens if we leave teaching to teachers.

Subbu

I agree.

But now we have to figure out how "to help the helpers", because besides wisdom,
many need much more knowledge than they have

Best wishes,

Alan




________________________________
From: K. K. Subramaniam <kksubbu.ml at gmail.com>
To: Alan Kay <alan.nemo at yahoo.com>
Cc: squeakland at squeakland.org; Chunka Mui <chunka.mui at devilsadvocategroup.com>;
voluntarios y administradores OLPC para usuarios docentes
<olpc-sur at lists.laptop.org>; "america-latina at squeakland.org"
<america-latina at squeakland.org>; Carlos Rabassa <carnen at mac.com>; Maho 2010
<maho at realness.org>; olpc bolivia <olpc-bolivia at lists.laptop.org>; OLPC Puno
<olpcpuno at gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, February 6, 2011 8:53:53 AM
Subject: Re: [squeakland] [IAEP] Plan Ceibal y/and General Electric

On Sunday 06 Feb 2011 8:13:55 pm Alan Kay wrote:
> I don't think of "teachers" or "teaching" as dirty words. And I don't
> separate  them by age group, profession, or whether parents or not. (Do I
> have to say that good teachers facilitate learning ....?)
Neither do I. The debate around good vs. bad teachers is a distraction that
gets us nowhere close to ensuring that all our students get education. The
real debate should be around empowerment of people who are assisting learners.
What we found is that teachers, even in crowded schools, were able to find
their own resources to ensure that their wards acquired basic skills.
Learning happens if we leave teaching to teachers.

Subbu



     
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