Liz: We?ve been talking a bit about Khan Academy Lite on this blog recently. KA Lite is the offline version of Khan Academy, and we?ve recently seen the Kingdom of Bhutan?s first Raspberry Pi being used as a server to give kids offline access to the huge, free suite of Khan Academy?s top-quality video lectures and learning materials. You can read more about Khan Academy on their own website, but don?t just take their word for it: there?s a wealth of material online about the Khan Academy learning experience from users, if you have a few minutes to google for it.
Pratik Pramanik, the author of this guest post, is a member of the KA Lite team that is focusing on hardware integration. KA Lite is a project developed by the Foundation for Learning Equality to bring education to offline communities.
RPi as low-cost infrastructure for advanced education using KA Lite
There is a tremendous fascination about low-cost computing as a lead hardware platform. The ability to leverage low-cost computing towards a better education is core to what KA Lite is trying to accomplish. Notably, the Raspberry Pi has been used as an extremely affordable server solution, and serves as a primary inspiration for a wave of educational computing in underserved communities.
With a 2600mAh battery and a Edimax 7811uN WiFi dongle in AP mode, this Raspberry Pi can serve as a mobile education hotspot for up to 3 hours.
What makes the RPi special compared to other low-cost platforms is the infinite flexibility of a platform that is built to tinker. We?ve seen the gamut of uses, from space imagery to supercomputers. There is huge potential in putting RPis running KA Lite in the field; it will pique the minds of the users in the same way it does anywhere else. It is an incredible introduction to computing that really hasn?t been modeled by other systems.
What inspires hope in us is that the knowledge gained from tinkering with the RPi scales and grows with the user. This empowers the users to build the environment they want to live in. We at the Foundation for Learning Equality want to expose underserved communities to a multitude of possibilities. The infinite possibilities of the Pi create a seed for a fully connected and computationally-skilled world.
It is important that we plant the right seeds. Right now, access to computing and the internet are held up by poor policy and inequitable control of important infrastructure. The internet as we know it is heavily reliant on the political climates of governments that have thousands of other interests pulling their attention away from the coming digital divide. As a result we?ve ended up with the massive disparity we see on this map:
Click to enlarge. Image credit: Telegeography
Why is it so easy for governments to ignore this disparity? It is not some nefarious scheme; it is because the infrastructure for reliable internet access is expensive compared to the political gains. The international submarine and terrestrial broadband data lines providing the major backbone to the global Internet are a huge economic and political endeavor. Each node on this map represents billions of dollars in capital and intergovernmental coordination. In regions like Ghana and rural India, the people don?t have the resources to lobby for access, especially when most resources go towards basic survival. What compounds this issue is the lack of development of a digital economy thus further isolating these communities and reducing their ability to get access and have a voice.
There is much hope for seeing these communities catching up; with devices like the Raspberry Pi acting as an access point we have the ability to create alternative and affordable types of infrastructure. By having these computing devices in the community, education will take hold providing a foundation for the communities? voice. Despite having a less direct connection to the internet, the desire for data will form strong human networks and a demand for infrastructure. We can also leverage this alternative network to create a model of the internet without the problems we face, leading to innovation no one could have imagined. The Pi has opened doors to amazing possibilities.
The path to discovering this new ad hoc infrastructure will be a collaborative process, not just with non-profits, organizations, Khan Academy and KA Lite ? but with the human network and low cost computers like the Raspberry Pi connecting us all.
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