| Chieh on Education / Polymorphism Polymorphism Since polymorphism is the least discussed formula, this might be a good point to start. This idea came to me when I first learned it in computer programming. The word itself is a definition of an entity that can take many forms. In Greek mythology, Zeus often transformed himself into different beings when he visited our world, mostly to pick up women. He would often transform himself into a human image to seduce beautiful mortal woman. One time, he even seduced a woman named Leda after transforming into a swan. So under these conditions Zeus would be considered a polymorph. This might be an interesting story, but does it have anything to do with cutting education's cost? In the past, we used to buy a watch, a cell phone, a camera, and a Blackberry as separate entities. But today, we can go to an Apple store to buy an iPhone and it can now simultaneously be all those things. In this case, an iPhone is a polymorph, and the value in such polymorphism is rather tremendous. Due to this shift, people have no need to buy watches anymore. Although an iPhone is still rather expensive today, its price will eventually fall, passing the savings on to customers. Another example is the evolution of printers. A printer today can also be a scanner as well as a fax machine. As a natural result of polymorphism, the cost is automatically reduced. Instead of buying all these separate devices, we now only need to buy one and it takes on different forms. As for our schools, have you ever noticed how much money we spend buying different textbooks? If we apply polymorphism to textbooks, we could reap cost savings by buying only a single reading device. Instead of buying different textbooks for each subject and for each grade year, we could simply download all the books onto the single device. A single reading device could replace everything a student needs to read. And this would not necessarily be restricted to textbooks. Teachers could upload homework as well as worksheets directly to these devices. Savings would come from not needing to buy all these textbooks, and from the paper saved in general printing. One Laptop Per Child The one laptop per child initiative is thus far the ultimate implementation of polymorphism. Needless to say, I am a major proponent of this initiative. The laptop itself would cost roughly two to three hundred dollars, but it could be almost everything a child would need during his or her learning career. It is a device that could replace every textbook a child would ever need. Homework could simply be emailed to the students. With a laptop, kids could familiarize themselves with technology at a young age. Kids would be able to watch video lectures, write software programs, edit images, produce movies, and do research on the Internet. All of these possibilities at only a fraction of the previous cost. The sky is the limit now because a computer device is the ultimate polymorph. It is a Zeus in a box. It can and will do anything we can possible imagine, as long as we program it. In the long run, the amount of savings per student would be tremendous because they would no longer have to buy all those other devices. A laptop could replace all of them. This effort should not be restricted to children in Africa. Instead, this effort can cut educational costs all around the world. Here in the affluent United States, a good number of students already have their own laptops. So the problem here is not so much a lack of laptops, but the fact that our schools are not using the concept of polymorphism to cut costs. I remember spending hundreds of dollars in college buying textbooks each semester, when all of them could have been digitized and freely downloaded via the Internet. With an understanding of polymorphism, it makes so much more economic sense to head toward a digitized future where standardized information becomes freely available on the Internet. We will save much money and resources if we no longer need to buy all those different textbooks. The one laptop per child initiative is an example that shows us how technology can reduce costs with polymorphism. But a computer as we know it today doesn't have to be the only polymorphic device. Newer technologies will reduce costs by applying the same concept. Times will change, and newer technologies will be invented, but we will invariably find polymorphism reducing costs. |
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