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OLPC Project Rollout Begins In Uruguay
Acer500 writes "The One Laptop Per Child project became a reality Thursday in Uruguay, as the 160 children of school number 24 in the humble town of Cardal received their XO computers. The learning tools came directly from the hands of president Tabaré Vazquez. It has become a matter of national pride that Uruguay is the first country to realize the project's goal. The target is that by 2009, every school-age child in Uruguay will have one, and an initial 15 million dollars have already been allocated to the project.
From the newspaper articles: 'The happiness of having a PC in their hands, some of them for the first time, had the kids in ecstasy, which didn't wait to turn on their computers, introduce their personal information (required the first time they're turned on), choose the screen colors, and start experimenting with them. What initially made them more enthusiastic was the possibility of taking photographs and filming each others with the included webcams.'" More information below.
According to the unofficial blog of the Uruguayan project, named proyecto Ceibal, the infrastructure for wireless is not yet in place but will be provided in the next few days by the national telco ANTEL. No photos of the event have been posted online, but you can see an institutional video on Youtube. One interesting point is that it has not yet been decided that the XO will be the laptop of choice for the entire project. Two other companies want to be considered: Intel, with their Classmate PC, and Israeli-manufactured ITP-C. In a press conference, Intel manager for the southern cone Esteban Galluzzi went as far as to compare the XO to a Pentium II, and stressed that the Classmate is able to run Windows XP. As advisor and local guru Juan Grompone stated, 'who will ultimately benefit from this is education?' This will be an interesting test to see if the OLPC project meets its intended goals of 'learning learning'. Let's hope this project is the means that will foster among some of the children the desire to learn and to tinker."
Lets see. OLPC is a little less than $200 per laptop, or the Classmate PC at about $400 per laptop. Multiply it by 2 million children... more than a 400 million dollar savings! I wonder which way the more cash strapped countries are going to go?
I would love to get my hands on some of these to see how well they work as a learning tool. The price point puts them in line with many other learning tools on the market for children. The open source platform makes them much more expandable. And, as they become more widely used, the software available for them will become much more diverse and powerful. I wonder if the Intel proposed alternative includes an Operating System in the price.
InnerWebFreud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
I find it interesting that Intel immediately jump in with "the ability to run win xp" as a major advantage. Leads me to ponder.
A lot has been said about the OLPC project sticking to open platforms, which may partially be a cost issue and partially an idealistic one. The real question is what is really best for the project? Sticking to open platforms, and open source or completely custom solutions, or a system that allows the use of windows xp?
I say windows and not os x, not because it's particularly better, thats an argument for a different time, but for the next question - is it better that the platform be completely open and/or custom, or that it corresponds to the most used operating system? The system that is used by a large quantity of consumers, the largest perhaps, and the platform that is the target of choice for people trying to make money of these consumers.
The real question is what is better for the students in this country. Not what is better for Microsoft, Intel or indeed Linux and the Open Source movement. Is it enough to give these students a computer, or should we be giving them a computer that gives them the potential to learn the systems in use by a majority of the world?
I guess the other side of the coin is this - if computing technology is about to find it's way into the hands of a lot of people who previously had no access to it, is that going to swell the marketplace such that what was previously a huge market share advantage could well be diluted by the choices made by this project? Every child in Uruguay is a lot of people - and its only a start. When other countries continue, the choice of operating system to learn might not seem quite as trivial as it may right now.
Doublethink is basically the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both
"They shouldn't spend *any* money on education until all poverty is solved"
Not so fast, let's see how this works out first, OK?
Education is the greatest basis for fighting poverty in a 3rd world country. Think better educated people -> more efficient entrepreneurs / companies -> more money in the local economy -> more taxes -> better healthcare and services etc. Uruguay could possibly have just made the first step to become the next India (IT-wise)!
BUT the greatest thing is that with more literate & educated people, the less likely they will endure another dictator. And that should happen *everywhere* else, not just in Uruguay! Without education, you could wait forever for all poverty to be solved.
Isn't the idea that instead of constantly giving them fish, we *teach* them to fish?
You're right that giving someone a laptop might have little effect on helping them learn. But, that's because we're thinking of a laptop just as a laptop, as a way to surf the net and type an essay.
All of these things will actually help kids learn:
All of those things can be fulfilled by a series of networked laptops for kids, at a much lower cost than doing things the dead-tree way. People will have to make some serious investment on the software side of this project for it to work. But, it could work. And if it does, it will seriously turn the world upside-down. Not because they have a laptop, but instead because they have access to textbooks, communication, and unfiltered information.
The OLPC project is trying to make the world a better place, not make the United States more dominant.
On the other hand, uneducated farmers working 60 hours a week to feed themselves in Cambodia don't help the US economy much - do they?
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.