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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.
"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?
From a practical standpoint: The OS was designed with ease of use in mind. From the demos I've seen, it does exactly what it's supposed to. Windows and all the other major operating systems are intended for general use, with loads of hardware and software to support, and as such have a huge array of things the OLPC devices will rarely need.
From an idealistic standpoint: I think it's great to provide the kids with a neutral OSS system tailored to the laptop, where they can decide for themselves later on which OS they will use. The point of the project is to provide EVERY child with a laptop. Hooking every child to a certain, commercial OS from the youngest years onward is not something a government should be doing. The kids will learn Windows, OSX and whatnot soon enough, as you did too. Not necessary at this stage, which is about giving children access to technology, not preparing them for cubicles.
parasight.de
You know what? I completely disagree with you. You are assuming that once you learn ONE os at an early age it is set in stone. As if you couldn't learn to use another. Or even two or three. You underestimate kids. People who grew up in the 80s know for a fact that this isn't true. My school's computer lab had 3 NEC with some kind of propietary os that we all learned to make BASIC programs. Then came the Apple IIe's and we had to learn DOS 3.2 and 3.3. My mother bought me my first computer, an Apple //c, and then I had to learn ProDOS. Next there was a Mac plus on which I ran MAC-OS 4 thru 6. Then a Mac quadra 605 (system 7-8). As soon as I started working it was MS-DOS, and all the windows. Three years ago I switched to linux. It wasn't so hard mainly because I was used to switching OS's. In fact the most difficult switch was from mac to windows 3.11. I now find myself costumizing gnome to match a lot of the original mac-os functionality (although not the windows decorations). But you know it isn't that difficult for me to figure out how to make gtk and metacity themes, had it not been for those BASIC programs I made in the NEC's and the apples.
I hate that they teach children today to use powerpoint and word. The argument that it is what they will need when working is absurd. If that where true I would have been terribly hindered by my lack of knowledge of wordstar, lotus and dbase when I got my high-school degree. I learned to use computers. And I can adapt myself to computers. I think this project aims at that type of experience that will make children better computer users and not merely software consumers. By the way this I'm describing happened to me in Colombia. So the preconceived notion some of you have about the third world use some updating.