Why logging on should be child’s play

Last Christmas, my eldest daughter, aged seven, received her first laptop as a present. If neuroscientists are to be believed, it may turn out to be one of her key development milestones. In the days when I was at school, “literacy” meant being able to read or write. These days, being functionally “literate” is not just about doing joined-up letters with a pencil; it also involves flicking words, numbers and shapes around on a screen.

And so one of my kids’ favourite pastimes now is playing “mathletics”, a website game where children compete in maths quizzes to “win” virtual gold medals – pitted against any other child who has also logged in, anywhere in the world, from their computer.

So far, so wholesome, it might seem – or at least compared with all the other things kids can do on the internet, such as drooling over Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. But as I watch my kids play, I cannot help wondering how this new computer literacy is shaping the way they think. And what does it mean if some children grow up playing with keyboards from a young age, but billions of others do not? Will it affect how functional literacy in the 21st century is defined?

Rodrigo Arboleda, a Colombian who now lives in Miami, is currently confronting these issues head on. Arboleda, 69, worked as an architect in his home town of Medellín, before moving to the US in 1977. He created a successful business exporting flowers, then, after selling his business, he threw himself into philanthropy, in the way that so many self-made Americans do.

He and his wife were keen to “do something to help children”, he recalls (tragically, three of their four children died before the age of six, due to a rare medical condition). And he happened to know Nicholas Negroponte, an architect-turned-digital geek who used to run the media centre at MIT. Between them, the two men launched a campaign that aims to provide the children of Latin America – rich and poor alike – with laptop computers to help promote their education and development, funded by corporate donations.

The scale of the initiative is striking. The computers, which have been developed especially for children, are ultra-cheap and simple, costing about $200 each. According to Arboleda, about 500,000 – or one for each primary schoolchild – have already been distributed in Uruguay, with strong local government support. “Uruguay is now the most important learning laboratory in the world, even better than Finland!” Arboleda proudly told me the other day, adding that “98 per cent of the children are now on the internet”.

Another million laptops have been distributed in Peru, although getting the kids hooked into the internet is proving more challenging there, because there are so many Andean mountain ranges and a range of complex languages. Meanwhile another 25,000 computers are being dispersed in Nicaragua, funded by a local bank, and in Colombia, companies such as BHP Billiton are backing a similar scheme in former rebel strongholds. Earlier this month, Arboleda went to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, to start distributing laptops to primary schoolchildren in slums such as the notorious Cidade de Deus (City of God).

A cynic might argue that this seems crazily ambitious, if not misguided, given that kids in slums probably have more pressing needs than computers. But what is driving the scheme – known as One Laptop Per Child – is a much grander intellectual vision, of the sort recently developed by American neuroscientists, and laid out in books such as Proust and the Squid, by Maryanne Wolf, a Tufts University professor.

This argues that just as the introduction of writing a few thousand years ago fundamentally changed the way that humans processed information, so the spread of computing power today is sparking a revolution in our brains. Thus, by distributing laptops, we are effectively ensuring that future generations of the dispossessed are sucked into this great neurological change, creating a more level world. “If we can do a massive distribution of laptops to children in remote areas, we may be discovering a major paradigm change,” Arboleda explains. “It’s similar to the arrival of cuneiform writing and reading of thousands of years ago.”

Could the idea fly? Should it? Since the project is still at an early stage, it is unclear. But it is certainly intriguing in terms of its potential for cultural change. And, if nothing else, it has made me look afresh at the mathletics website my daughters love.

Right now, the other kids who log on to play this game typically come from America, Europe, Korea and Australia. But might a day come when seven-year-olds from Uruguay or Peru will also log on, perhaps with a system of simultaneous translation? I would love to think so; anybody know how to say “game on” in Spanish, Portuguese – or Quechua?

gillian.tett@ft.com

via ft.com

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