I wish to add my 2 cents to the discussion at a heavy risk of sounding like a condescending idiot. I say this only because I taught a completely online course in "Global Business" to African refugees in Kekuma camp in northern Kenya and Dzaleka camp in Malawi. The students were all refugees from various African countries, namely, Somalia, South Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, etc. I was one of the six faculty who taught six sections. All six of us are from the network of 28 Jesuit schools of business in USA. We completed the course successfully, and the usual self-congratulatory celebrations followed and everyone felt good about the good they were doing in social justice, etc.
But throughout the course, I felt a real tinge of guilt as I wondered if we were delivering knowledge that will be useful to these refugees. While they were accumulating knowledge, I was pretty sure that they would never or hardly transform that into useful knowledge. While it is hard to describe my discomfiture, I would denominate it as "epistemological irrelevance" which simply stated is useless knowledge.
So all I am suggesting is that some intellectual skepticism is needed. We have to ask if the ppor in India will obtain useful knowledge from the TABLET PC.
That is my 2 cents at the risk of sounding like an idiot.
Ravi Chinta
