Impossible thing #6: Freedom for all with the One Laptop Per Child project
Submitted by scrubs on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 13:14.
For many years, there has been a growing concern about the emergence of a “digital divide” between rich and poor. The idea is that people who don’t meet a certain threshold income won’t be able to afford the investment in computers and internet connectivity that makes further learning and development possible. They’ll become trapped by their circumstances. Under proprietary commercial operating systems, which impose a kind of plateau on the cost of computer systems, this may well be true. But GNU/Linux, continuously improving hardware, and a community commitment to bringing technology down to cost instead of just up to spec, has led to a new wave of ultra-low-cost computers, starting with the One Laptop Per Child’s XO. These free-software-based computers will be the first introduction to computing for millions of new users, and that foretells a much freer future.
XO for children is a gamer and camera ? Not much else yet ?
The fact that children learned to use camera and play games is all the joy of owning a XO.
However, the teachers made learning a task to write documents and perhaps even paint pictures. Playing music on XO, maybe the next curriculum. Downloading books is still too slow. Distributing USB flash cards with books in them maybe easier.
So, the MIT project moved on in Uruguay and Peru. Both sold by one skilled government vendor. It seems important to send these subcontractors to many other countries to launch similar projects.
Impossible task, not really. Its just learning on the way by NN and OLPC staff? don't stop in two countries, send the same salesmen to everywhere where there is least resistance.