We've now gone far off-topic of this post, so I'm doing two thing to bring this conversation into the mainstream.

1. I'm closing comments on this post.

2. I invite the three of you to participate in the July ETD where we will cover all the ICT tools available to teachers that are not on the Low-Cost ICT Devices list – like projectors, smartboards, and audio devices. If you'd like to be formal discussants please email me your Guest Post for publication starting in July.

This invitation goes out to all ETD readers as well.

Just in case the last link was not opening.. try this one..
Just share what you think.. How can we improve this?

So, let us start with you.. how about you give up your laptop and start living by what is projected to you alone?

A laptop is for learning. A projection is for someone making their point.
A laptop is something we explore with, we do what we consider important.. we do things with it..
A projection is like being driven in a cab in a city you know little about.. a laptop is like exploring the city yourself.. What do you want to be?

In a class of 30 students, the cost of maintaining and running the class with every child having on is $10,000 including electricity, 200 applications, 100 digital books children can read outside the class, can communicate, chat, explore, learn.. that is $60 per child per year..

Let me know the cost of projection system for doing a 20th of that.. because it cannot do more than a twntieth of what a laptop does..

We have all had projection in our conference rooms.. we project what we work on.. to say that comes stored on an SD card is like saying please come to my room and i have a projection system and I will show you the whole city without you having to leave it.. What if anyone wanted another city? Or do things differently from the way you stored?

Projection system is a painting on the wall.. Learning is a s dynamic as you can get.. the difference is simply a zillion times..

Projection system is like being in prison.. Laptops for learning are like living in an open society..

Spread the message of OLPC can create a projection in the classroom for less. Share with your friends and family who care about our nation and its future.

Who knows which child we touch will be the next Gandhi, Einstein, Gates or Jobs! May be your contributions will just touch one of those?

The ratio of financial cost compared to the number of learner hours is vastly superior to any other solution. Video stored on flash media requires 1 gigabyte for 10 hours. In mid 2010, an 8 GB SD card costs $16 and holds 80 hours of video. In the coming years, an SD card will hold 2 terabytes holding 20,000 hours of video.

In the long run Haitz's Law will impact video projectors in two ways. Brighter video projectors will make for larger screens; someday as large as a drive-in movie theater from a hand held pico projector. Haitz's Law can also dramatically reduce the power requirements for a pico projector such that it can be operated with a button battery used for wristwatches. These batteries will be recharged in a few minutes and run for hours.

It does not matter if we can successfully imagine and/or create a future where video projectors will be pervasive in rural schools. IT IS INEVITABLE.

My take is that the projector serves it purpose best because..

1. It enables ICT based contents immediately seen by an entire class. It dispense with the need for text books where children's eyes are focused on the screen rather than their books not knowing sometimes where to look for.
2. It saves teachers' time having to draw or write on the blackboard. The pictures are much easier to understand than teachers having to draw or imagine those images etc.
3. Instances where the netbook with load speakers attached to projectors reads out unlimited times and children can follow the lessons better.

1 projector's cost = roughly 2 netbooks.

So for the cost of 3 netbooks, the same amount of money can benefit 50/3 = 17 classes X 50 students = 850 students compared to 50 students through the OLPC approach.

How I wish Negroponte had a sense of business as well. He may have partnered with a large corporation to do the job of distributing it and life would have changed for hundreds of children. By asking non-business people to make business decisions he just slowed the whole process.

I can tell you about India. Even if all the governments placed the order on OLPC, OLPC will not be able to service them. An order to be converted to what is actionable needs a number of steps to be taken. Where does OLPC have the organization beyond the evangelist Mr Jha to do it in India and some others in other countries. That is hardly anyway to succeed in achieving the audacious goals.

Audacious goals need audacious strategies and audacious ways as well. When they fail, shrubs like projection system reforming learning and education start cropping up and derailing the purpose of education. Projection is fine where it is. Its being used as a panacea for education is crass commercialism with no legs.

I know a projection vendor thinks of projection only. That is like someone offering a bigger blackboard as a solution to learning.

Please let these gadget enthusiasts know that if a projector is one piece of the puzzle, efforts like OLPC are close to a school in a box. We need the world bank folks start seeing things a little differently from what they been trained to do. When you evaluate a future technology you did not create, you need a different kind pair of eyes that help you see the future. Its one thing to be a gatekeeper where the role is to see the future from with the eyes trained for yesterdays. Its quite another to imagine the future and create it.