A new sort of digital divide is arriving: hoards of school age kids with no room for many of them in a school, yet they have mobile internet access. For that reason, India will provide $10 – $20 low power laptops for practically every student across the country. India Express and The Wired Campus have articles today about the India initiative. Mobile phones are increasingly giving internet access to youngsters in more and more countries – places where there are school shortages and where portions of the population have never gone to school.
There is a choice you may never even have thought about that 21st century people must make very soon.
- Do we spend billions on brick and mortar schools and classrooms to accommodate the swelling global youth population? OR
- Do we organize what is known online and provide tutorials there that deliver much of the knowledge to the new generations?
Perhaps we can do some of both, but doing only the first choice is no longer an option. There is not the wealth available to do the physical building, nor the time
