The Computers for Schools revolution

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2009, Uruguay became the first country in the world to give a laptop computer to every child in state primary schools. We hear from the man whose initiative is credited with transforming the lives of students and teachers. Plus, a US soldier's account of the battle for the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004, and memories of the Brazilian rubber-tapper and environmentalist Chico Mendes.

PHOTO: Two Uruguayan children enjoying their laptops (Courtesy Plan Ceibal)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me
0:09.1	Max Pearson the past brought to life by those who were there. This week an astonishing story of survival from the Second World War.
0:17.0	The Germans attacked the village and burnt it down. There was no relief for men or women. They fired incendiary bullets and everything was burned down.
0:27.0	Also how militants in Kashmir drove thousands of Hindus from the valley in 1990.
0:33.0	They told me we know your utterances and we know your views and if you don't stop we will
0:39.7	be head you and then I realized it may be a very serious thing.
0:45.0	And on a lighter note, how Uruguay secured a world first by getting school kids online.
0:51.0	It was a shock for the whole town. We were in the school yard. They called us one by one and handed over the little computers.
1:00.0	That's all coming up later in the podcast. But first after another week of tit for
1:05.1	tat tension between Iran and the US, we start with a story about another recent
1:09.9	US intervention in the Middle East, following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Americans
1:16.2	found themselves bogged down confronting a bitter insurgency. Alex Last has one soldier's
1:21.1	account of the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, which the Americans hoped
1:25.6	would be a turning point in their fight against that insurgency. A heavy assault is underway by American and Iraqi forces to regain control of Fallujah, the
1:38.6	rebel stronghold. Plains and
1:42.8	tanks have been pounding the city while thousands of troops have been moving in.
1:46.0	There was nowhere in flu jet that was safe.
1:48.9	It was really the sort of fight that that we hadn't seen before and we just didn't see again in Iraq.
1:55.0	In 2004, a year after the US-led invasion of Iraq, the country was in chaos.
2:01.0	The actions of the US-led coalition had done much to stoke resistance
2:06.2	among Iraqis. Shooting of civilians, arbitrary detentions, the abuse at Abu Ghraib, and the forced demobilization of the old Iraqi army to name a few.
2:17.0	It had all helped create a resistance which drew together an unlikely alliance of former enemies
	...

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