{"id":4236,"date":"2011-09-12T12:53:40","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T16:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/?page_id=4236"},"modified":"2011-09-12T12:53:40","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T16:53:40","slug":"from-the-instructor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/journal\/past-issues\/issue-3\/shah\/from-the-instructor\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Instructor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Namank Shah&#8217;s analysis of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project reminds us of the important lessons of failure. As Namank ably points out, in development projects, idealism is not enough: it must be accompanied by a careful and detailed assessment of need, that is in turn complemented by cultural understanding and awareness of community acceptance.<\/p>\n<p>Namank&#8217;s essay carefully outlines the failures of the OLPC project. His assessment draws on the tenets of appropriate technology, one of which is community control of engagement with new technologies.<\/p>\n<p>As Namank suggests, in a methodical and clear-sighted manner, the limitations of the OLPC project can teach us a great deal about our assumptions of the uses of technology in developing countries and about the rightful place of humility alongside knowledge in the pursuit of development goals.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2014 DEBORAH BREEN<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Namank Shah&#8217;s analysis of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project reminds us of the important lessons of failure. As Namank ably points out, in development projects, idealism is not enough: it must be accompanied by a careful and detailed assessment of need, that is in turn complemented by cultural understanding and awareness of community [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4801,"featured_media":0,"parent":3777,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4236"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4236"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4239,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4236\/revisions\/4239"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}