Uruguay Government Distributes Laptops for Elementary School Students

A revolution in education by distributing Uruguayan government laptops to primary school students. The division of this laptop is a government program to menjebatani world pendiidkan with the digital world.

"This is not just handing out laptops or educational programs. This is a program that seeks to reduce the gap between the digital world and the world of knowledge, "said Miguel Brechner, president of Technology Laboratory of Uruguay and is responsible for the project. (Cited KabarIT from BBC)

The project named "Plan Ceibal" (Education Connect) is expected to also allow the family can connect to the internet world for the first time. The project, which is actually a scheme of "One Laptop Per Child" which comes from an organization founded by Internet pioneer Nicholas Negroponte in Uruguay. In this program makes the scheme Nicholas laptop with a price of $ 100 per child, but the Uruguayan government had spent even more because it also includes the maintenance budget of $ 260.

This program uses the model using the XO laptop opensource linux user interface with the name Sugar. This was also criticism from some parties who said the children would be unfamiliar with the operating system that is widely used as Windows XP.

Also it is not easy to make a revolution in education by using this project.

"We have a woman who had been teaching for 30 years and when the government gives us the computers and training, he was asked to leave because he did not want anything to do with this program. Then he changed his mind and now the computer has changed the way he taught. "Lourdes Bardino, principal of the school in Las Piedras 173.

But the Uruguayan government seems optimistic with this program that can improve education and make it easier for people connected with the information on the Internet.