Let’s Focus on Educational Media, Not ICT Devices
I propose that the ICT4D community should reduce its emphasis on the creation of innovative devices and focus more on the creation of effective educational media for existing low-cost devices. Market forces are making computers far more affordable, but are not producing quality educational media suitable for education in developing contexts. This lack of digital educational content is a market flaw that needs to be addressed by public-private funding and academic-commercial partnerships.
Our model: Producing Educational Games for a $10 Computer
Playpower is an open-source community that supports the design of affordable, effective and fun educational media for underprivileged children around the world. We are currently developing a suite of educational games for a $10 educational computer.
The computer is so affordable because it is based on a 30 year-old 8-bit microprocessor technology that is now in the public domain; the computer is now produced by dozens of competing manufacturers, driving costs down. The 8-bit computer comes with a keyboard, mouse, game controllers, dozens of games, and uses a home television as a screen.
This computer is widely available for sale in dozens of developing countries, including India, Pakistan, Nicaragua and Brazil. The existing economy of scale creates an opportunity for a new model of ICT4D distribution, which we call a “Manufacturing Intervention.” In this distribution model, the completed Playpower games are given away to the manufacturers, who can “preload” the games with the computers they sell to distributors. In this manner, Playpower games can piggyback on the existing distribution network, which is already reaching millions of BOP (bottom of the pyramid) consumers.
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This $10 8-bit computer is just the beginning. We believe that a wide range of technologies, including netbooks and smartphones, will soon be widely affordable to BOP consumers. As these devices already come preloaded with games like Solitaire and Snake, preloading educational games and media on these devices could effectively reach millions of children for a very low cost.
Where is the Educational Content?
While market forces will make ICT that is affordable to BOP consumers, it seems clear that low-cost computer manufacturers will not have the profit margins to invest in the creation of effective educational content. So, the question is, who will create the content? Perhaps more importantly, who will pay for the creation of the content? It won’t be the consumers, nor the device manufactures. We believe that government and private support is needed to create a shared, remixable global library of educational media.
Intellectual Property and Content Appropriation
The $10 computer uses the same microprocessor technology as the 8-bit Apple II computer. The Apple II (along with other low-cost 8-bit computers) introduced computing to millions of children in America, with 8-bit educational games like Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. While these games have little commercial value, they would be valuable on our platform—unfortunately, their copyrights will not expire for another 50 years.
We strongly advocate the modification of international intellectual property laws to promote the availability of educational digital media content in developing contexts. Ironically, at a consumer and business level, intellectual property is often completely unprotected in developing contexts—but this is not improving the availability of educational media. We believe that Intellectual property laws and licenses should be enhanced to support the legal flow of information to places that need it most—those who are most unable to pay for it.
The Case for Public Support of Digital Educational Media
Even conservative political philosophies believe that governments should provide free and effective primary school education. This is one reason why a quality, free public school education is recognized by the United Nations as a Universal Human Right. Despite this fact, millions of children around the world are receiving an ineffective primary education in government schools. In addition to the life of ignorance and low-wages facing these children, a lack of education stalls economic and political development. Low-quality education may even effect global security: the low quality of public schools has driven the dramatic expansion of religious schools in places like Pakistan.
In contrast to teacher training, quality digital educational media can scale rapidly and at a very low cost. It can often be quickly modified for regional languages and curricula, particularly if the source code is available. Furthermore, digital educational content can be improved over time, through an iterative development process. This suggests that digital educational media could dramatically impact education in developing contexts.
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Unfortunately, creating quality educational media is difficult, time consuming, and often requires expensive efficacy studies and iteration. As a result, commercial media companies do not have the incentive to participate in the production of quality educational media—particularly media that is focused on developing contexts. This suggests a clear need for the public support of educational media development, at a regional, national and even international level. In addition to governmental procurements, governments could also incentivize content development through tax credits for media that serves the public good. To make the case for public support, however, it is important that ICT4D researchers can generate solid evidence for the utility of digital educational media.
Playpower Research
While we strongly support digital educational media in schools, Playpower.org is focused on providing games that can serve the needs of families—specifically, families that might buy a $10 educational computer. Therefore, we have undertaken an extensive field research program in India to identify these needs and to understand the use of the 8-bit computer in low-income households. Surprisingly, this research has identified a range of low-cost computing technologies that are currently prevalent in low-income households ($100-$300 per month, per household).
Since cable TV is widespread, even in low-income households, we found many families that had televisions or set-top boxes that had built-in games, including educational games, which are played with a remote control. Other households had handheld video game systems with small screens, while others had “Toy Laptops” that contained a range of educational games. Of course, mobile phones are ubiquitous in low-income households, and are almost certainly the most common gaming platform. Playpower.org has an academic collaboration with Millee, an organization that is focused on developing English learning games for mobiles phones.
Value of Playing Video Games
Given that our 8-bit computer platform is primarily used for playing video games, we hope to investigate whether video games contribute or detract from our educational objectives. Our fieldwork indicates that many low-income children in urban India have played video games, either on a mobile phone, on the television, in an arcade, or even on a PC. Does this experience have any positive or negative effects?
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There is the possibility that playing videogames can improve economic opportunities for low-income children. While further study is required, the logic of this claim is as follows: videogame play seems to generally increase a child’s interest in computers; this interest results in more exposure to computers and enhanced motivation to learn computer skills, which subsequently results in videogame-playing children developing more computer skills, relative to children who do not play videogames. These greater computer skills can directly lead to meaningful economic opportunities.
Join Us in Person
Sound plausible? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And if you’re in New York City this weekend, join us for a Playpower 8-Bit Game Design Workshop at NYU.
The workshop will be led by Playpower founder Derek Lomas, Playpower programmer Kishan Patel, 8-bit artist Don Miller, and NYU professor Chris Hoadley (host). We’re focusing on:
- Furthering the develop Playpower’s current suite of games (e.g., Hanuman Typing Warrior, Hanuman Quiz Adventure, Malaria Prevention prototype)
- Learning the basics of 8-bit game design
- Expanding Playpower’s growing volunteer network!
We’ll have a mix of artists, graphic designers, programmers, learning specialists and ICT4D experts. If you’re interested in attending, please fill out this form ASAP.
This is the first positive and practical idea I have seen since this debate began. I am not opposed to any technology but certainly do not want to jump on the band wagon just because it is there.
Derek,
I am glad to see you have been able to move forward with your plans for Playpower. I am writing with some thoughts as to how you could increase the amount of content available for those $10 computers.
Though Steve Balmer is definitely not my favorite person in the world, he is right about one thing: Developers, Developers, Developers. How does he attract developers? He makes it as easy as possible for developers to write code for his platform. Microsoft development environments are some of the easiest to use, even for beginning programmers. Many programmers write code almost exclusively for the Windows platform simply because the integrated development environment (IDE) of the Visual Studio products was so easy to learn when they first got started.
So, it seems to me, if you want to increase the number of apps for this $10 computer then you need to increase the number of developers by making it as easy as possible to get started. Do you have documentation, software libraries, and software development kits (SDKs) available? Or do developers have to start from scratch and dig out the information about developing for this platform on their own. Are there significant differences between this platform and other, previous, 6502 platforms? Will old books about programming for the Apple II suffice or will they just confuse people? If you want people to develop games then it might be a good idea to start by developing a basic library of code specifically for creating games. Creating a plug in for the Eclipse IDE would also go a long way toward getting more developers on board. You might think about creating an environment where even non-programmers can create a game just by importing graphics and configuring behaviors similar to a product called Power Game Factory (which is unfortunately only available for Macs). I realize these would be a lot of work which is why I offer the next suggestion…
Get college students to do the work for you! Work with college and vo-tech teachers and convince them to offer classes in programming for this platform. Writing for this platform will force students to think carefully about the efficiency of their programs. It will give them experience working in a different environment, rather than just being yet another Windows programmer, which will be valuable experience when they get out in the real world and discover that most coding jobs are NOT for the Windows environment or even for 32-bit processors. The test environment is incredibly inexpensive (TEN BUCKS!!!) so even the poorest of students can afford it. You can prepare kits with documentation, software, and one of these computers for less than many students spend on beer in a weekend. You can promise them enduring fame and the opportunity to really help people all over the world. How many students get that? And without ever leaving home?
Finally, I would suggest making all this easily available directly from your web site. Many people may be hesitant to “join” your project if they don’t know what resources will be made available to them beforehand. Make the software libraries easily available, perhaps through Source-Forge, and allow people to order the computers for their own use and experimentation.
Good luck to you. As you know, I am working on a contribution of my own so I will not be able to contribute directly to your project any time soon. However, I hope to one day see DEMML software running on your $10 computer so everyone can learn anything they want.
I would love to test these out where I work in rural Mozambique. Having had similar experiences to those described above by @Pamela, I don't think the $10 computer can be considered wholly in isolation of teacher training programs, but it certainly seems like a worthwhile venture for environments where resources are severely constrained.
The $ 10 tool looks very promising. I visited the playpower website, and found no information on how to acquire these devices. Am also curious to know whether the $10 is the real cost, or subsidized.
Derek,
I am glad to see you have been able to move forward with your plans for Playpower. I am writing with some thoughts as to how you could increase the amount of content available for those $10 computers.
Though Steve Balmer is definitely not my favorite person in the world, he is right about one thing: Developers, Developers, Developers. How does he attract developers? He makes it as easy as possible for developers to write code for his platform. Microsoft development environments are some of the easiest to use, even for beginning programmers. Many programmers write code almost exclusively for the Windows platform simply because the integrated development environment (IDE) of the Visual Studio products was so easy to learn when they first got started.
So, it seems to me, if you want to increase the number of apps for this $10 computer then you need to increase the number of developers by making it as easy as possible to get started. Do you have documentation, software libraries, and software development kits (SDKs) available? Or do developers have to start from scratch and dig out the information about developing for this platform on their own. Are there significant differences between this platform and other, previous, 6502 platforms? Will old books about programming for the Apple II or Commodore 64 suffice or will they just confuse people? If you want people to develop games then it might be a good idea to start by developing a basic library of code specifically for creating games. Creating a plug in for the Eclipse IDE would also go a long way toward getting more developers on board. You might think about creating an environment where even non-programmers can create a game just by importing graphics and configuring behaviors similar to a product called Power Game Factory (which is unfortunately only available for Macs, available at http://www.sawbladesoftware.com). I realize these would be a lot of work which is why I offer the next suggestion…
Get college students to do the work for you! Work with college and vo-tech teachers and convince them to offer classes in programming for this platform. Writing for this platform will force students to think carefully about the efficiency of their programs. It will give them experience working in a different environment, rather than just being yet another Windows programmer, which will be valuable experience when they get out in the real world and discover that most coding jobs are NOT for the Windows environment or even for 32-bit processors. The test environment is incredibly inexpensive (TEN BUCKS!!!) so even the poorest of students can afford it. You can prepare kits with documentation, software, and one of these computers for less than many students spend on beer in a weekend. You can promise them enduring fame and the opportunity to really help people all over the world. How many students get that? And without ever leaving home?
Finally, I would suggest making all this easily available directly from your web site. Many people may be hesitant to “join” your project if they don’t know what resources will be made available to them beforehand. Make the software libraries easily available, perhaps through Source-Forge, and allow people to order the computers for their own use and experimentation.
Good luck to you. As you know, I am working on a contribution of my own so I will not be able to contribute directly to your project any time soon. However, I hope to one day see DEMML software running on your $10 computer so everyone can learn anything they want.
Hi Grant
you say
"Though Steve Balmer is definitely not my favorite person in the world, he is right about one thing: Developers, Developers, Developers. How does he attract developers? He makes it as easy as possible for developers to write code for his platform. Microsoft development environments are some of the easiest to use, even for beginning programmers. Many programmers write code almost exclusively for the Windows platform simply because the integrated development environment (IDE) of the Visual Studio products was so easy to learn when they first got started."
I agree with you on the first line – Steve Ballmer or Microsoft cannot be the favorite of anyone working in education – since education is all about peer learning, collaborating and sharing, the very antithesis of knowledge proprietisation, and knowledge proprietisation is the foundational principle of proprietary sotware
the rest of your para is refuted by a recent report in New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/technology/05so…
"Meanwhile, young technology companies today rely on free, open-source
business software rather than Microsoft’s products, so young students,
soon to be looking for jobs, have embraced open-source software as well.
“Microsoft is totally off the radar of the cool, hip, cutting-edge
software developers,” said Tim O’Reilly, who publishes a popular line of
software development guides.
In a way it is good for education… that we are moving towards collaboratively created, freely shareable software – since free sharing and collaborative co-construction are foundational principles of education.
More and more people and institutions are adopting FOSS due to these reasons – visit http://public-software.in/taxonomy/term/15
regards
Guru
GuruKasi, Thank you for your thoughtful comment. My point was not primarily about the popularity of open source. My point was that Microsoft was able to draw lots of developers by making it as easy as possible for developers to, well, develop. Both in the sense of developing code and in the sense of getting started easily and growing from there. While I agree that many young programmers are turning to open source and that many new start-ups must rely on open source languages and development environments due to budget constraints, I do not exactly consider Tim O’Reilly the most trustworthy source in this matter. Just as Steve Balmer and Steve Jobs claim to believe whatever they think will sell the most of their own software or computers, Tim O’Reilly, in my opinion, tends to say whatever he thinks will sell the most books or convention tickets. But that is another matter. There are still many computer science programs which use Visual Studio. My own son – who is way smarter than I will ever be and works for a web development company, so I thought he would know better – is heavily tied to MS development tools simply because they made it the easiest for him to get started. However, the focus of this discussion is on increasing the number of applications created for this $10 computer. I still believe the best way to do that is to make it as easy as possible for developers to get started. This is the same philosophy adopted by many open source projects. Code, documentation, and software development kits are posted on the web for all to access. While Derek’s web site is nice looking, it does not provide any information about actually obtaining, working with, or developing for these computers. That is a gigantic roadblock towards obtaining his stated goal of increasing the number of apps available. Regards, Grant S. Robertson
I share the opinion that content at this time may be more important than hardware. It’s essential that content serve the purposes of the user. As a teacher, I need programs in my class that are very different from what parents need at home. So I would not personally be involved in game development. But I’d sure be a user with my own kids at home, and professionally to the extent I had any influence on my students’ life outside of class. I share with Cavin the desire to know more about the 8-bit computers. (I too looked at the Playpower website for this, but didn’t see anything.) I wrote the programming for my original classroom setup (commented in the One Mouse Per Student thread) in 6510 machine language for the Commodore 64, using a series of Basic loaders. Not the smart way to do it, but the only way I knew how at the time. It ran well, though; had no trouble keeping up with input from 16 students, using the humongous 64K memory base and running at a blazing 1 megahertz. : > ) So I don’t look down on old 8-bit designs. Grant is surely right about getting information available directly on line. The woods are full of public spirited tekkies willing to spend time on worthwhile projects, and technical information is one way to draw their interest.
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