Quick let's do a study on literacy and computers!

Wired News via Intel reports that the poor do not want the hand-cranked $100 laptops because they will be unsatisfied with them. Personally, I think it is too early to tell; the United Nations has praised MIT's project because these lime green computers will be going to places that do not have electricity and will be able to create a wireless network. I guess Intel is not inside these computers.

The article also mentioned that Sri Lanka, just one of the places that the computers are going, has a 90 percent literacy rate. Wow!! Let us compare that statistic with our urban schools that do have computer access. I would love to see a study that measures the literacy rates of the Sri Lanka school children as they use their new lime green computers. Will the literacy rate increase? Will it drop? I think this is a great opportunity for a research group to get some useful data. I know that Marc Prensky says the Net Generation has a different brain but I am not convince that it is a better brain. If a study could be done on Sri Lanka's school children or any of the other countries that are getting these $100 laptops, I would enjoy seeing if computers are indeed the great equalizer.