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OLPC To Be Distributed To US Students
eldavojohn writes "The One Laptop Per Child Project plans to launch OLPC America in 2008 , to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally intended for developing nations to needy students here in the United States. Nicholas Negroponte is quoted as saying, 'We are doing something patriotic, if you will, after all we are and there are poor children in America. The second thing we're doing is building a critical mass. The numbers are going to go up, people will make more software, it will steer a larger development community.'"
Hurray for OLPC team!
Maybe we might begin to develop a generation of students who haven't been mesmerized by the MICROSOFT logo. Tweaking around with the OS for fun will sprout a new generation of "garage" hackers. I'll never forget my first erector set. Now it will be virtual. Go kiddies GO !
That's one fact I did not know about America and specifically the USA. I thought America was a place where everybody was rich. Its government was always funding a significant portion of my country's budget and building schools and hospitals.
That's what I believed till I came here. I saw what capitalism can be. The rich get richer and the poor have almost no chance of escaping poverty's grip! All in America.
I also saw something: America is rich in what I call material prosperity...that is, infrastructure and all supporting services; but beyond that, people (most of them) are really hurting and living from hand to mouth. Sadly, our politicians are doing us no good at all. Corruption is rife in America and incompetence is reaching terrible levels.
The other sad fact is that the situation will get worse before it gets better.
We had our first meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area OLPC user group. Not sure if we even have a name. At any rate, a bunch of us got together at the Linux lab in the San Francisco State University to just goof around with these machines. It is really funny to hear them hiss at each other as they try to figure out how close the nearest XOs are. Yep, they talk to each other. They emit a brief hissing sound when you ask them to calculate the distance between XOs. They listen for the hissing sound (or so I was told, dunno, didn't check into it) and then they calculate how long it took for the sound to reach each other, and then they all report back to each other, and they determine how far apart their fellow XOs are. Hilarious.
They also have built in video, which two of the resident children were really enjoying by making monkey faces, much to the embarrassment of their parents. Insanity, you know, is inherited from your children. heh. One kid composed music on his XO. He is 5. As in less than 6 years old. You can add eyes to the screen, and the screen will talk to you to tell you how many eyes it has. Very entertaining for a 3 year-old. Did I mention that these computers are called One Laptop Per *Child*? They really figured out how to make these computers entertaining *for kids*. This is really a kid-centric device.
The amazing thing is that it brings out the kid in adults.
I agree they should have offered the laptop to the general public from day one. I don't agree that it's to late to do so now though. There is an untapped market of people that would like to use these as cheap ebook readers. Since they have low power usage and are usable in the sunlight, they could be used as a decent book readers.
I do wish they would offer them in a different color scheme, say basic black. I don't see a whole lot of non-geeks carrying around a white and lime green laptop that looks like a childs toy.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
In this light it would make absolutely no sense to service the wealthy geek niche while Intel/Microsoft maximise profits at the expense of education, because by the time the OLPC had done whatever else it would take to satisfy you, the contest would be over.
This isn't an anti-capitalist hippie parade either, but quite simply that all profit which is extracted from these developing nations represents lost opportunity for education. Intel/Microsoft can either help or hinder, but they have no sympathy from me if they continue to choose the latter.
I can confirm this from personal experience. I was born in Mexico and when I was 13 my family moved to the US. I was halfway through the equivalent of 7th grade (Jr. High in the US). At that point I had learned the following as part of my education (note - this was in public school, no advanced placement / gifted program or anything):
Math - Had basic geometry covered and was starting on algebra. I already knew some basic number theory, sets, square roots, and how to read numbers in the trillions and beyond. I could convert from decimals to fractions and back.
Science - I memorized the periodic table of elements and had to recite them all to the teacher as part of our test. We had been introduced to astronomy, physics, biology and of course chemistry as I mentioned.
Geography - Learned the name of every country in the world. For our tests the teacher put up a poster of each continent with national boundaries but no labels. As she pointed to each country we had to give its name and capital.
Literature - We had read and discussed excerpted versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey, among other classics.
History - In addition to excruciatingly detailed Mexican history we learned about the history of the world starting with ancient civilizations like Sumeria and Egypt. We worked our way through Greece, Rome, Persia, China and the more recent empires (Renaissance nation-states, European colonial powers, etc.). We covered the world wars in great detail and even discussed world events from that time, like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
So when I got to the U.S.A. I was looking forward to an amazing education in the world's richest, most technologically advanced country. What did I get? For math, they started with fractions. For history they covered the US war of independence in the most incredibly dumbed-down way and hardly mentioned any world history. For science, my biology textbook said that all information referring to evolution should be considered a theory and not a scientific fact... shall I go on?
Don't get me wrong. I love this country and I'm eternally grateful for the opportunities I've had (bachelor's degree in computer science, great career working for a fortune 100 technology company, etc.). It just disappointed me that the educational system was such a lazy affair, where many teachers appeared to be barely competent and most of them didn't take the time and effort to inspire and push the students to do better. Fortunately my family instilled in me the value of education so I made the extra effort to learn more than what the schools offered to teach me. I have heard similar stories from friends who immigrated from other countries, in particular India and other parts of Asia. I have hoped for years that things would improve but I'm not holding my breath anymore. And we dare to be surprised by the outsourcing situation?
Quantum mechanics: the dreams that stuff is made of.