Ceibal Project: Uruguay

According to Bill Strickland, the problem with poor people is that they don't have any money.  The interesting thing about that statement is it's simplicity of thought.  It is not hard to come to this conclusion.  It is hard to act on this dictum.  One Laptop per Child seems to have broken that barrier.  The only difference between this organization and Strickland's expansive community center in the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh (with a fountain) is materiality.  Strickland creates a discourse around an idea that manifested itself in the form of a building.  One Laptop per Child is creating discourse around connectivity.  

Uruguay's version of the One Laptop per Child project, Ceibal, which stands for "Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea”or basic informatic educative connectivity for online learning.  Despite the organization's appreciation of the XO's other applications, they are more apparently concerned with this cute little computer's ability to connect discursively starved students to a greater source of history and information.  More importantly it gives these students a voice that was previously deprived of them.  Ceibal recently held an open forum which they called Ceibal Jam.  The purpose was to brainstorm ideas for applications that would be useful for young student in Uruguay.  The meeting focused on six basic needs:  develop games, create applications for the XO, install and work with emulators, knowledge of the Python programing language for XO, and develop a system for blogging.  In a post by Pablo Flores, a member of the Ceibal team, stated  "for the first time, those with little voice will have a medium of communication with which to describe their experiences, dreams, and needs from their own perspective, unlike the traditional means of researchers from other sectors of society speaking for them."  

So what happens when you give these students this power.  There are many questions to be left answered.  But the focus in Uruguay, which now has over 200,000 of these laptops, is on connectivity.  They have yet to post on their blog the different ways that the students are using these laptops.  At least in the ways that fit vision of project Ceibal.  But this raises another possible blog post.  One of the critiques of this program is that this is merely a continuation of a colonial discourse.  It is another way for the west to impose its definition of discourse and agency on rest of the world.  Ceibal's adaptation and effort to make this project their own may be the beginnings of a reaction to this critique.