Leaving No Child Behind

Adam Beavers
green machine (2).jpgOLPC is a global educational project designed to teach children to teach themselves. Since it’s founding in 2005, by Nicholas Negroponte and other MIT Media Lab veterans, OLPC’s vision has been to bring “$100 laptops” to the children of impoverished countries around the world. There are five core principles espoused by OLPC: (1) child ownership; (2) low ages; (3) saturation; (4) connection; and (5) free and open source. This means that young school age children will own their on computer, be connected to the internet, have the ability to upgrade programs and be surrounded by other children with laptops.

Several countries have already made pledges to support the OLPC project such as: Uruguay, Rwanda, Libya, Nigeria, and Brazil. The latest evolution of the “$100 laptop” is the XO which begins mass production this month.

 

Story Suggested by Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid

Creative Commons Image: whipsmart's photos on Flickr

Comments

Am I the only one who thinks

Submitted by Tal.Leeds on Wed, 10/24/2007 - 01:50.
Am I the only one who thinks that giving laptops to the "thrid world" and spreading our mind disease to them is a bad idea? I'm glued to my box and screen as are my fellow americans and thats exactly how I think we all got into this shit we're in now.

I have been thinking about

Submitted by nadzinka on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 16:34.

I have been thinking about that too... Their research shows a lot of benefits of laptops, such as more interest and more time spent by children on studying. Also, children get to connect to the world and to each other via laptops. But what are the long term effects?

I wonder if there is a way to use technology and not get into the shit but maybe use it to get out of it... In the end it is not technology it is us who are creating it.