I have always loved writing and have managed to indulge in it for a long time with just my old reliable paper and pen.  The introduction of the computer into daily use hardly made a ripple in  my everyday routine of writing since I found it quite cumbersome to go through the motions of opening it and having to be where it is during the times that inspiration suddenly strikes.  And then the laptop came…

Having always been a traditional person, I did not jump at the first opportunity to use it.  I tried to use the same reasoning I used against desktop computers but found myself unable to resist as strongly as I used to when confronted with a new gadget.  I believe that the old ways will always have its reason and its charm and that the new ways will somehow destroy  it.  When old meets new, conflicts are bound to arise, or so I thought.

This was different.  It offered portability, convenience, and accesibility at any given time and place.   It is not as imposing and disturbing as its bigger counterparts.  It is able to blend in with the scene so well that I could probably imagine a well-renowned novelist holding it instead of a paper and pen and not be disturbed by it at all. It probably gave the most liberating feeling that any writer can ever hope for in a writing implement.

I will not pretend not to enjoy the advantages of using a laptop and intend to use one until something better comes along.  I have not totally given up with my paper and pen since using them still brings me the joy that has become very familiar to me.  Writing with my laptop however is a joy that I haven’t finished discovering yet.

How will two identical laptops fare in the hands of a child from a highly-developed country and a child from a developing country? For the purpose of easier comparison, let us all think for a while in the line of the advantages associated with the privileged and the limitations related to the less-privileged.  A laptop in the hands of a child from the US or UK is probably a necessity in studying.  Almost every child of school-age will have one or at least have easy access to one.  On the other side of the world particularly in countries like Cambodia or Ethiopia, a laptop is a luxury, falling behind a long list of more pressing necessities such as food, shelter, and clothing.

Given this reality, all children regardless of status in life would want to have equal access to the opportunities presented by technology and whatever advancement it brings.  This would probably explain the pictures of joy as seen on the recipients’ faces after receiving their own laptop through the highly-controversial “One Laptop Per Child” or OLPC initiative.  After having to share one textbook with at least five other kids in class, is it at all surprising to feel such amazement in having a technological gadget which one can call his/her own?

Children who have automatic access to equipments such as a laptop are not only lucky because of  their availability but also because of the prevailing physical convenience around them and the level of support available to them to maximize its use.  The same cannot be said for the recipients of the free laptop in a third world country who obviously do not have the capacity and the ability to maximize the use of what they got.  Unless a government agency or a non-government organization makes sure that the recipients and the teachers have been properly supported by funding and training, we can be pretty sure that the laptop will just go back straight to the box, never to serve its purpose of education.

Such wasted money for the purchasing country, such wasted learning opportunity for the child.