What we can learn from the OLPC project
Depending on whom you listen to, the One Laptop Per Child project has either produced the world's greatest monstrosity or the world's most innovative laptop (for the developing world, anyway). But as Geek.com notes, there is plenty to learn from OLPC, whether one likes it or not.
Where OLPC becomes really interesting for me, however, is what it may do to the machines that I use on a daily basis. I'm unlikely to crank up power for my machine anytime soon (though I wouldn't mind having a laptop with me when I go backpacking in the Wind River Mountains each year). But that's not the point. OLPC is paving the way to all sorts of new thinking in computer design.
One area is in simplicity:
People don't need a lot of power. The average user only needs a notebook for surfing the Internet, e-mailing, storing/transporting files, and viewing the occasional presentation. There is a place for high power notebooks, but most people just want something simple to take to the coffee shop or on a business trip. This means that considerable costs can be cut by using components that are less than cutting edge and by keeping memory and storage at relatively low levels. A notebook this affordable could also act as a secondary device for buyers that have a larger notebook or that use a small portable device (like a Nokia N800 or HTC Advantage).
Take a look at the article to learn more. I may never buy an OLPC. But I'm hopeful that OLPC will have a positive effect on those that I do.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
the OLPC is particularly interesting as far as small laptops go regard because it is to such an extreme. It is so efficient that, in theory, you never have to plug it in. It has bare bones software that makes extremely effective use of the bare bones hardware (in this manner it proves what gaming consoles have been proving for years: proprietary equals efficient). It has pure and simple internet access and word processing. It is obscenely small and light, small enough for any backpack. I won't pretend to be certain, but given the intended purpose and proprietary nature of the laptop it seems likely that it will be reliable. These are all of the things that I and anyone in the market for this type of machine wants.
It odd that A product designed for someone else turns out to be exactly what we've wanted for a while now. here hopeing that they extend the BOGO offer past the first to weeks of November.
But I'm still more than a little tenative about the merit of introducing technology to kids for the sake of education. I'm unconvinced that doing so in the U.S. has really accomplished much. The OLPC project is a noble gesture - and the wonks behind it are to be commended - but ultimately, I think it's a bit misguided. Wouldn't we be wise to address the more immediate and vital analog needs of children in the OLPC target countries prior to placing digital toolkits in their hands? A full mind is a lofty goal, but what of a full belly? And what of disease prevention?
- Laptops in education
- by jimafrost October 15, 2007 1:50 PM PDT
- "But I'm still more than a little tenative [sic] about the merit of introducing technology to kids for the sake of education. I'm unconvinced that doing so in the U.S. has really accomplished much."
- Reply to this comment
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(3 Comments)You raise a good point, but here's a counterpoint: Books are expensive, too, and they're single-purpose. You buy the book at it is already all it will ever be.
When I was in primary school our history textbooks covered US history through to the Korean war. Problem was, Carter was president at the time. The school system could not afford to buy textbooks often enough for them to be current; their buying cycle was more than 20 years long.
Consider that if you have a laptop attached to the net then Wikipedia alone covers enough information to bring a student from K through college, and its information is constantly updated and improved, in some cases up-to-date literally to the minute. And that's just one website, of many millions; the same device also provides access to newspapers, magazines, and more.
Back to paper, by the time I was in high school I was carrying tens of pounds of books back and forth to school even though I really only used a few pages out of each book per day. My laptop weighs only a few pounds, but even independent of the 'net it can easily hold the text from hundreds or thousands of books. In fact, my palmtop has 80 novels in it -- literally a personal library in my pocket. (I never, ever read the Star in line at the grocery store.)
So while you're right in that the US educational system has not done much effectively with technology, perhaps that is because it has not been used in the ways in which it would be most effective. We still use paper books, and there is a whole industry that is resisting (very strongly resisting) a change to more malleable (and cheaper!) formats. Perhaps OLPC will find its greatest use not in the fact that it's a computer, but in the fact that it's a portal to the greatest information store mankind has ever known.
Of course a lot of why the computers haven't been used this way is tied to both cost (school systems couldn't afford a device per student) and portability (laptops are even more expensive than desktops). So largely computers have been used not so much for education as for vocational training. I think that has value too, but as portable information access becomes pervasive it should dramatically reshape education.
OLPC may well be the opening shot in that revolution. I hope so.