I wrote about the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program several months ago in this Blog (Look in the archives!). I thought I would give an update on this important and ground breaking project.
OLPC isn't really about laptops, its about learning. The goal is to provide many of the disenfranchised children of the world a different way to learn. Laptops happen to be the media that was chosen. There are 1.2BILLION children in 3rd world countries, so there is no shortage of customers! Before we get too far along here is a link to their webpage: http://www.laptop.org/
The OLPC laptop has started to be distributed. Cost, right now, is about $150 per unit. Units have now been distributed in several countries. Feedback from the children has been marvelous. The units seem to be hardy enough and are having very few issues in the field.
The laptop has no moving parts, is water proof and dust proof, requires very little electricity and is self contained (other then a power cable). All the software on the laptop is open source (free) and most is modifiable (by the children!). Every laptop immediately recognizes other laptops and instantly form a network (the "mesh"). You can play games, browse the Internet together, collaborate and work on projects TOGETHER. Thus pushing the concept of Peer to Peer learning. You learn from each other and kids become the experts imparting knowledge that they have acquired by curiosity.
OLPC is gearing up for the massive distribution of the laptop. Over 80 countries have signed on to buy the laptops and distribute them in their countries. This will happen with the feedback the company is getting from the test distributions. The laptop has a unique browser that can save Internet sessions to use when you go home (and likely don't have Internet access).
We'll periodically keep you up to date on the status of this wonderful application of technology.
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