Five Italian elementary schools in Lazio, Piedmont and Sicily (Cardinal Massaia and Fratelli Cervi in Rome, Don Milani in Rivoli, Giotto in Palermo and Giovanni Pascoli in Novi Ligure) are experimenting – thanks to the collaboration between Intel, Olidata and the Fondazione Mondo digitale - the Jump PC, a mini computer custom designed for children. In total, 150 students and 15 teachers are involved in this project.
Public Administration and Innovation Minister Renato Brunetta participated in the video press conference held in Rome with satellite connections to schools in Palermo and Turin. Brunetta promised “today’s is an extraordinary initiative, but I am working with Education Minister Gelmini to vastly extend this project to all schools next year.”
This project is part of the larger e-government strategy and plans to equip schools with digital blackboards and a broadband network.
Minister Brunetta pointed out that children can give teachers and parents the impetus to overcome the digital divide via a mass approach: “over the course of a few semesters, I intend to provide schools with over a million mini PCs in order to overcome the digital divide in schools.”
Teachers believe that PCs in class are useful and mainly use it to innovate didactic activities. Tullio De Mauro, President of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, has emphasised the important role that PCs play in peer education of children as well as to overcome the digital divide.
"These tools,” De Mauro explains, “simplify relations between students and between students and teachers. Just as, in the past, mothers used to learn how to read by helping their children with their homework, today’s children will be able to teach their parents to use the new technology that is available to us."
