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Sakshat is first and foremost an education program, with a resource and interaction portal in http://www.sakshat.ac.in/ . The device is just one tool of this program but might be of crucial importance for students to be able to work at home, without an internet connection, on material either printed or saved in digital form.

On February 3, after a tremendous amount of hype, India's $10 laptop was finally unveiled. In anticipation of the event, Jim Morrison, Innovate editor-in-chief, distributed an eblast to Innovate board members, which was followed up by Jim Shimabukuro's I-Blog post "India: $10 Notebooks for Students" on February 2. As we all know by now, the Sakshat "laptop" turned out to be a computing device, a far cry from a computer. In the aftermath, Shimabukuro put out a call for articles: What are the implications of the Sakshat or a similar cheap computer device for education?

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When I envision my Aspire One and my daughter's iPhone side by side, I can't help but see a continuum, an evolutionary chain. In this chain, the computer gradually evolves into a web interface device, or WID 10dollar_laptop(pronounced "wide"), which integrates web and standard phone capabilities. My laptop is at the juncture of that shift, and further up the line is the iPhone.

The effective use of technology to improve learning processes turns out to be a far greater "change problem" than most leaders and practitioners appreciate and one that is inconsistent with the rigid and powerful cultural aspects (i.e., assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors) of education. Among the key reasons for this limited success are (a) the all too common "cultural paralysis" in education, (b) the lack of adequate transformational leadership for providing the necessary "learning vision," "change sponsorship," and relevant "circumstances and rewards," and (c) few proactive professional faculty development programs that meaningfully prepare faculty change methods, "change creation," that provide approaches for long-term improvement.

Stated more succinctly as a "general theory of learning in the web era," to borrow a phrase from Jim Shimabukuro, computer technology (e.g., $10 computers) + access to the digital storehouse of human knowledge + social computing + cognitive tools + teaching and learning practices consistent with the learning sciences + leadership to catalyze change = transformation of education.

What impact will the $10 notebooks have on education? or Is it really possible to produce a useful notebook for $10? See also Harry Keller's "It's not the hardware; it's the software!" comment