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India: Hole-in-the-Wall is amazing– “An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a […]

India: Hole-in-the-Wall is amazing–

“An Indian physicist puts a PC with a high speed internet connection in a wall in the slums and watches what happens. Based on the results, he talks about issues of digital divide, computer education and kids, the dynamics of the third world getting online.”

another site on the subject

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  2. 2
    samantha bailey

    You never cease to amaze me with your ability to hit on fascinating bits and bobs on the web! This article is amazing–I’m sending it to a friend studying HCI with a particular interest in kids.

  5. 5
    Chris McEvoy

    My favourite bit:

    Q: Of all the things the children did and learned, what did you find the most surprising?

    A: One day there was a document file on the desktop of the computer. It was called “untitled.doc” and it said in big colorful letters, “I Love India.” I couldn’t believe it for the simple reason that there was no keyboard on the computer [only a touch screen]. I asked my main assistant — a young boy, eight years old, the son of a local betel-nut seller — and I asked him, “How on earth did you do this?” He showed me the character map inside [Microsoft] Word. So he had gotten into the character map inside Word, and dragged and dropped the letters onto the screen, then increased the point size and painted the letters. I was stunned because I didn’t know that the character map existed — and I have a PhD.

  6. 6
    Juan

    This experiment makes me feel dirty. We treat Indian Children like monkeys, experimenting with them, showing no respect: “we put a pc and see what happens…” And the only thing that matters is what we can learn about it.The fact that this kids have never seen a PC before doesn’t seem to matter. After all, that’s life, isn’t it?

  7. 7
    Allan Ken

    That would definitely be a digital breakthrough in the future. Having easy accesibility to knowledge would definitely propel human civilisations to greater heights – Just my 2 cent comment. 🙂

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