When my sister was less than 10 years old, my mother would drive her to school in our neighborhood. she sat in the back seat, my mother would give her the Smart phone to hold. Then she would ask her to look for answers to questions, and read them out….The objective was very simple, she wanted her to be extremely familiar with searching for answers on her phone.
Today she owns a Smartphone, and I have never seen anyone that digitally “native.” She is also the most “techie” of all children at school, and the one we call when we need to fix something.
Every child should have access to a mobile Smartphone. That’s one of the smartest things you can do for your child, and for our continent even if you cannot afford to buy one right away, you should allow your child to have (monitored) access to the phone in your hand right now, for up to 1-2 hours a day
With wise guidance, this phone of yours can eventually even open up university doors to your child. (Speaking of which, what a great time we had at this week’s town hall at makerere university Uganda. Thanks everyone took part.)
Now it’s amazing how many people will tell you they don’t have a computer, even though they have s Smartphone. In Africa we already have more than 300million Smartphone’s, which means a significant number of adults do have computers already! This number is expected to reach 500million within two years!
This is remarkable because we are on our way to everyone actually owning a computer within five years.
So: “What is that in your hand?”
Answer: “Smartphone, or shall I say, computer!”
More than that: its I powerful tool to help advance the education of a child, or empower a teacher!
“Really?!”
“Why not!”
We can write Apps that deliver educational materials to children and help teachers get answers to questions, and access to materials such as books, etc
The second smart thing you can do today, as a responsible parent, is to ensure that your child’s teacher has a Smartphone! Even better would be to get that teacher (or teachers) a tablet computer or laptop.
We have now reached the point where if a teacher has no access to a computer, we are being criminally neglect towards the future of our children, and with it, our nations!
Now just suppose your national leaders or local government authorities have other priorities than providing computers to teachers (even though I cannot imagine a greater priority than the education of our children). If that is the case, what do you do as a parent?
Get together with other parents and buy them for each teacher in your school! There’s no time to waste!