Peruvian Teachers Begin OLPC Training
eldavojohn writes "Today was the first day that Peruvian teachers from remote villages began training to use the OLPC in their day-to-day activities. From the article: 'Success of OLPC now depends largely on frontline teachers and, of course, parents and kids. Peru's effort, if successful, would be a model for other nations. In the training now under way, teachers must become versed not only in how to operate and maintain the laptops, but also in how to do their jobs within a newly laptop-centric educational model. The laptops will contain some 115 books, including textbooks, novels, and poetry, as well as art and music programs, cameras, and other goodies. What many of these kids won't get is Internet access: about 90 percent of the villages lack it, and may not get it anytime soon.'"
What a coincidence... I'm reading this on the XO I just received today. I'm piggybacking on a neighbour's WiFi. It's a well-built, quality machine. It has a built-in Python interpreter called Pippy, with numerous examples and help to train tomorrow's programmers. It has a command-line terminal, which also provides a Python interprreter. 20 hrs battery life on one charge, I think I'll bring it with me on business trips.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
It is also worth checking out the OLPC wiki entry on Arahuay, Peru, where the first pilot project was set up. Very interesting account of the successes and obstacles the project has gone through there.
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