BBC Blog Network

User Profile

conrad_taylor

Listed below are comments made by conrad_taylor between Friday, 16th May 2008 and Tuesday, 3rd June 2008.

«Newer
Older»

Suggest a story for June 7 5:18pm on 03 Jun 2008 Hmm, there's more to my suspicions of iPlayer and its effects on people's bandwidth than at first I thought. Having been discussing this with others in the British Computer Society during the day, I discovewr criticisms of Sky, Channel 4 and BBC for using Verisign's Kontiki software (that's what lies behind iPlayer).

What's wrong with it? Quite a lot. Kontiki basically establishes a peer-to-peer system, which means that if you sign up to one of these services, you get software installed that not only gives you access to TV programmes, but also recruits your PC as a kind of "zombie server". It's neat for the BBC and the like who don't need to provide as much server capacity, but it hammers the users' PCs. Even very technically aware users have been unaware that their machines have been "zombiefied" as the result of subscribing to one of these online TV services. It comes rather close to being unethical.

Look for "Kontiki" on Wikipedia and check, for example, the fifth reference...

Together with the general bandwidth issue, there is definitely a hot subject for iPM debate here.
Suggest a story for June 7 11:03am on 03 Jun 2008 From Conrad Taylor:

How about a discussion of the broadband speed tests that the BBC has been conducting? Contrary to the impression of the headline news on Today today, many of the comments people in Central London have left on the Google map indicate connection speeds of 1 Mbps and below (I scored 0.9).

I have noted a degradation in my effective connection speed over the last few months, and I'm fairly sure my exchange hasn't been moving further away from me. If I may be so naughty as to suggest it, what is the impact on effective capacity of the network on the roll-out of the BBC iPlayer service? This is a packet-switched system after all, so the more that folks use iPlayer, the slower the "information superM25" becomes.

I would argue that the provision of BBC radio content via listen-again or MP3 download is a Good Thing, but doing the same to video? Socially irresponsible? Let the debate begin...
One Laptop - hello Windows, goodbye Linux 09:00am on 19 May 2008 I am disappointed that many participants in this debate seem unable to move beyond the Windows versus Linux issue. "The main issues are educational ones," says Negroponte. But in saying so, he himself seems to be missing the point, and the point isn't the operating system -- it's Sugar.

What makes OLPC special is the interplay between the Sugar interface and its Activities (applications), and the machine's mesh networking capabilities. In its departure from the desktop metaphor, Sugar places the child at the centre of her activities, and encourages collaboration in learning. As the Sugar Labs wiki says: "The Sugar interface... is the first serious attempt to create a user interface that is based on both cognitive and social constructivism: learners should engage is authentic exploration and collaboration... Everyone is a teacher and a learner."

Consider, for example, the Write application, based on AbiWord. This is being developed to integrate with the mesh-network capabilities of the XO, and the "presence services", so that children can seamlessly co-edit written work in real time, even if they are away from school but within range of each other. Windows and its apps cannot deliver this experience.

Go to http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home and explore the accounts from pilot sites to see how children are using Sugar activities in their education.

The Sugar suite is not a set of office applications being used in an educational context; they are being developed uniquely to serve an educational purpose. This is what countries who want the XO with the Windows option will be missing out on; but then, it is likely that these countries' educational authorities reject the constructionist premise. Such countries also seem to want to acquire computers for an older age-group, to teach marketable skills, whereas Sugar is aimed at fundamental abilities to think, learn and express oneself from the primary years onwards.

I was cheered to read that Walter Bender is taking Sugar Labs into independent status, and that he hopes Sugar can be ported to other platforms, such as Ubuntu. Sugar deserves support!
One Laptop - hello Windows, goodbye Linux 07:45am on 16 May 2008 It seems to me that the really important issue for the use of computers in schools is the actual applications that they support, and the educational activities and learning opportunities which those applications in turn support. (The operating system that enables those applications should be a secondary issue.)

In that light, it is very interesting to read about the innovative learning experiences which the XO catalysed in the five countries where it was trialled - the Thai village site for example produced interesting uses of the machine in biology field trips, music making etc. It would seem the educational applications developed to run on Linux for XO show great promise.

Let's not forget that the XO is not just a low-cost computer; a constructionist educational philosophy lies behind it, inspired by Seymour Papert et al. This has been missed by many who think the aim is just to put cheap computers in front of kids.

The Sugar interface and mesh networking are important because they put the child at the centre, and empower autonomous links between the child and his or her friends and classmates. That is what will be missing from the Windows experience.

But Rory, as I think your investigations in Nigeria showed -- as well as a battle between OSes, there is a battle between educational cultures. Remember how the Intel laptops were under the command of the teacher's machine in Abuja, and how the computers were taken off the kids at the end of the day? Whereas the XOs got taken home.

There are many governments unwilling to subscribe to a constructionist view of education: it is potentially too liberating. Better to raise the next generation as Microserfs. (BTW, Linux can be used in a similarly controlling fashion.)

In reporting on this issue, I'd like to read more about Sugar, the educational applications, the pedagogy, the meshing.

Conrad Taylor

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

conrad_taylor