Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007 - (Page 18)

international sensation. Developingworld presidents from Brazil to Nigeria to ailand were captivated by Negroponte’s dream that they could revolutionize education, the very act of learning, with an inexpensive yet rugged laptop speciﬁcally designed for children that negated the need to construct schools or hire teachers. Over the past two years, Negroponte’s idea has grown into the non-proﬁt One Laptop Per Child, an international consortium of leading technology companies and gifted computer programmers and designers who have produced an actual working laptop, the XO-1 based on constructionist learning. Looking at its software and hardware, it is a revolution in computing and learning. A CHILDREN’S MACHINE Internet protocol called 802.11s, that allows each XO-1 to directly and instantly connect with another. is mesh network eliminates the need for a traditional central computer router– each laptop automatically becomes a router–and allows every computer access to any other computer’s Internet connection without a lengthy or complicated network formation process. e mesh network is further enhanced by its connection through so the XO-1 becomes an eBook reader with access to an entire Library of Alexandria worth of information, in any language and on any subject. READING IN DAYLIGHT Even the world’s greatest collection of eBooks would be useless if children could not read them easily so the XO-1 comes with an innovative dual-mode screen that makes reading enjoyable anywhere. e screen seamlessly switches from a high-resolution color mode for a clear and crisp visual experience to a power-saving black and white mode that can be read in direct sunlight, just like a newspaper. Children wil be able to explore literature in the classroom, at home, or outside, where they spend much of their day. HAND-CRANK COMPUTING e XO-1 takes the greatest While now costing $200 per laptop, the OLPC XO-1 contains an impressive array of technology advances that are not found in the most expensive commercial laptops. Each advance is tweaked to facilitate the constructionist goal of children’s collaborative learning. e look of the computers–bright green and white and child-like–is designed to ensure that only children will use them. SUGARIZED ACTIVITIES e laptop user interface, the software that children navigate to interact with the computer, is called Sugar. It doesn’t look like Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, or any ﬂavor of Linux but its Open Source software is based on the Linux operating system. Sugar’s every aspect is designed to encourage collaboration. It starts with a circle of activities, not programs, and promotes the sharing of the activities both online and through the physical interaction a child has with the computer. Take the classic computer game Tetris. Sugarized for the XO-1, it is now called Block Party, a collaborative spatial manipulation learning tool where multiple players work in concert to place irregular-sized blocks in congruent, solid lines. MESH NETWORKING LIFELINE is a crank-powered transistor radio adapted from a Freeplay radio design by the Freeplay Foundation for use by children in the developing world. www.freeplayfoundation.org. antennas on the top of the laptop, its signature bunny ears, that allow the XO-1 to talk to XOs a kilometer away. THE ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY challenge of rural community computing, reliable electricity and allows the children to be part of the solution. OLPC partnered with Squid Labs, a fabricator of experimental technologies, to produce a laptop hand crank, the Potenco “yo-yo” that generates the electricity required to recharge e yo-yo is a the XO-1 battery. power-generating spindle spun with a pull string. Turn the crank for a few minutes to recharge other battery-operated electronics, like cell phones, for several hours of use. But none of those technologies is designed to be as power-eﬃcient as the OLPC computer. e XO-1 uses only three watts of power in normal operation and will run for days, not hours, on one battery charge. A RUGGED PLATFORM One XO-1 laptop is designed to run To facilitate this constant collaboration, OLPC is implementing a new wireless 18 Winter 2007 Activities and connectivity are well and good, but there is already a wealth of human knowledge in the printed word. e OLPC XO allows children to access this knowledge through electronic books in its eBook mode, a tablet-style laptop form factor that presents printed matter in a landscape format perfect for recreating the actions of reading text. An eBook takes up a fraction of digital space, each XO-1 can hold several hundred eBooks and a community server can hold a few thousand more, for three years, even in the harsh operating environment of a child’s life in the developing world. e computer is one of the most rugged technology platforms yet developed. It has a sturdy hard-plastic frame, shockresistant internal technology, a thick, protected screen, and even a rubberized, waterproof keyboard to help it survive heat, dust and even a rainstorm. If an XO-1 is eventually damaged, its http://www.freeplayfoundation.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007

Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007 Contents President's Note Lafayette Park Note to Readers Commentary Letter from India Commentary Letter from Botswana Letter from Ha Teboho Letter from Jumbi Valley Letter from Mununga Letter from Medellin Giving Back Community News

Worldview Magazine - Winter 2007

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