Alicia Casas de Barran, the Director of Uruguay’s National Archives, speaks today about “what happens when all students and teachers have their own laptops” at the World Bank in DC. She has set a good standard for countries interested in digitizing national learning and government material, and it is great to see the national libraries and archives joining the public discussion.
Uruguay continues to build on its success, which last month reported a tripling of access to the Internet in the country’s interior, and that 85% of all children were online. Plan Ceibal continues to expand its vision for the program to include older children.
I’m from uruguay, and live in the capital: Montevideo. Also, I’m Computer Engineer, and had my first computer at the age of 20, and connected to internet about at 22 years old. That changed my life, because the information system industry is the most fast growing job market in uruguay actually.
I only can imagine in that days what would happen if all people have the same chance to “open to the world”, as happened with the Ceibal plan.
The plan was used in first place in a very limited basis, mostly to obtain political benefits. But then the plan grow,and today is perfectly normal to view all the children in the streets playing and sharing with their XO, when a few years ago the children go massively to “cybers” (the places that offer a computer with internet connection and one pay for the time used). They used to spend most of the day in those places.
I think they gain in freedom, not only in connectivity. Now, its perfectly normal for us to think of all our relationships in terms of internet.
Thank you, Lucas. That’s fantastic to hear. I was in Uruguay myself for just a few days, and felt a similar amazing sense of contented expectation.
I live in the south-Brazil and last month I was visiting Uruguay.
What I saw was amazing. Not only because every children have a laptop, but mainly because children that hardly have access to a phone now have a laptop.
And the biggest thing was the bright in the fathers eyes. Isn’t only about a laptop, but mostly about a great expectation that the next generation don’t have the same fate this one already have.
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I would love to hear comments from those who attended.