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CORONADO, Calif.--This probably doesn't come as a surprise to most parents, but plopping a computer down in front of a student doesn't necessarily translate into academic success.

Don Helfgott of Inspiration Software, Tom Greaves of Project Inkwell, and Jeanette Hammock of True North Logic (left to right) discuss technology in education.

(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)

We've heard a lot in recent years about the One Laptop Per Child initiative, and similar competing programs, which aim to improve educational standards in various parts of the world through computing power. But according to a panel discussion at the Future in Review conference, the computer itself isn't the issue; educators need to find meaningful ways to introduce computers into their day-to-day instructional process.

More than two-thirds of teachers surveyed in a recent inquiry said they were not getting any substantial improvements in academic progress from their participation in a one-computer-per-student program, said Tom Greaves, an education consultant and member of Project Inkwell. Project Inkwell was founded and is run by Mark Anderson, the organizer of FIRe and head of Strategic News Service, to help get technology into classrooms.

While that may sound dismal, last year it was even worse: only 17 percent of those surveyed said they were noticing substantial academic progress from one-to-one programs, Greaves said. The problem is that while computers are nice and all, they must be part of a teaching plan and a community's educational mission, and teachers need help figuring out the best ways to use the computers.

"Curriculum standards aren't written around having a computer" as part of the teaching process, said Jeanette Hammock, chief technology officer for True North Logic, which trains teachers on how to use technology in academically rewarding ways. There's a lot of pressure on teachers these days to follow lesson plans aimed at standardized tests, and it doesn't appear that many school districts have thought about how to integrate technology into those plans.

Don Helfgott, CEO of Inspiration Software, agreed. "It takes a teacher 5 years before they become facile in (a one-to-one) environment. (There's) hundreds of years of non-technology-based book curriculum that exists."

So while the debate over whether the OLPC should use Windows or the custom-designed Sugar interface is interesting, it obscures the real obstacle to technology-assisted learning.

No matter what technology they employ, teachers need support and training not just on how to use the computers themselves, but how to make them a useful part of the teaching process. That's not a technology question, that's an educational question.

In the hardware world, the first-mover strategy only works if you get it right.

For example, let's consider Palm's Foleo. Introduced last May at the D: All Thing Digital conference, the Foleo was supposed to be a $499 lightweight "mobile companion" with a full-size keyboard. Sure, it looked like a 10-inch laptop, but it was woefully underpowered, and it was designed to only work with Palm's Treo smartphones at first: modifications would have to have been made to support other phones.

Faced with mounting criticism, Palm made the correct decision in September to postpone the Foleo project and focus on more pressing priorities. But late last year, something interesting began to happen. After watching the early interest in a different design, Asus' Eee PC, the PC industry began taking another look at the idea of low-cost lightweight laptops that couldn't handle Crysis but could get you up and running on the Internet.

Palm's Foleo is not what designers of the latest subnotebooks have in mind.

(Credit: Palm)

My colleague Erica Ogg, a smart and thoughtful person despite her baffling support for the Los Angeles Dodgers, thinks that Palm and Hawkins deserve more credit for coming up with this concept. Earlier today, she wrote, "but the Eee wasn't the first to employ the broader concept of a mobile Web device that looked like a notebook PC, but was meant to function more as a secondary device. That was the idea brought to us by Palm founder Jeff Hawkins with the Foleo."

I'm not sure I could disagree more. Just for a moment, I'll leave aside the fact that Asus announced the Eee PC just days after Hawkins introduced his "best idea ever," meaning company executives probably didn't throw together a blueprint for the Eee PC on the plane ride back from Carlsbad, Calif., to Taiwan.

This idea has been around for ages. Gateway had one. Toshiba had one. Sony had one. The problem with all of those designs was that they were too expensive, too underpowered, too clunky, or all three. Most were released well before wireless networking became ubiquitious, as well.

These days, with the price of processing power and storage at an all-time low, it stands to reason that people would be interested in compelling devices that won't replace your main home or work PC, but provide a decent experience running today's software.

Unfortunately, that does not in any way describe the Foleo.

Palm designed the Foleo as basically one thing: an adjunct to Treo smartphone owners who wanted a larger keyboard and screen for working through a day's e-mail. It featured a processor designed for 2004-era PDAs, and it was unclear whether it could play video. It came with just 256MBs of storage, nearly four times less capacity than a $49 iPod Shuffle. Toshiba's Libretto 20, a subnotebook introduced 12 years earlier in 1995, used a 270MB hard drive.

Chances are, the Foleo wasn't even as powerful as the smartphones it was designed to work alongside. The only thing it brought to the table that you can't find on an iPhone was a keyboard and a display. And the iPhone is cheaper, with a more powerful processor and boatloads more storage, and it can play movies, television shows, and music with ease.

Now consider the Eee PC (for the record, an even dumber name than the Foleo). It uses a 900MHz processor made by Intel; no powerhouse for sure, but at least it was designed to run PC applications. The base model comes with 2GB of flash memory for storage, and models with 8GB are available.

You're not going to edit home videos on this thing, but you can surf the Web, read and write documents, install third-party software written for Linux clients, and play songs and movies. And priced at $299 to $499, it's also cheaper than the Foleo.

Yes, the Foleo was also a small Linux-based notebook for around $500. That doesn't mean Palm and Hawkins deserve credit for correctly predicting the need for smaller notebook-style computers, because that's not what they designed. The only similarity between the Foleo and the Eee PC is a price tag, the Linux operating system, and a hinge.

Regular readers of this blog might be surprised at the following sentence, but it's true. The person who really deserves credit for the recent miniboom in small low-cost Linux laptops might just be Nick Negroponte.

If you think about it, the XO laptop has spurred far more development than the Foleo.

(Credit: OLPC)

I've had my disagreements with the One Laptop Per Child project and its methods, but those do not extend to the XO laptop itself. It's been a long and winding road, but Negroponte first outlined his idea for a low-cost open-source laptop in January 2005 at the World Economic Forum in Davos (click for PDF).

In the months and years that followed, Intel and AMD each scurried to come up with their own proposal for a portable low-cost Linux-based system. The two chipmakers have scored more points slagging each other's ideas than they have in the marketplace, but their efforts working on these types of projects spurred other PC companies to get involved.

And the XO laptop has actually received some interest from regular folks in developed countries intrigued by the interface and design of the laptop. The XO is likewise not a very powerful system, but at least it can do more than read e-mail and browse the Web.

Let's give Palm and Jeff Hawkins credit for a lot of things--perhaps most importantly, the notion of truly mobile computing itself. But if the race to develop The Next Mobile Computer really centers around the Eee PC and its offspring, it won't be because of the Foleo.

The One Laptop Per Child organization's "Give One, Get One" program has hit a few snags in recent weeks, as donors are apparently having trouble getting their end of the bargain to come together.

The program offered fans of the XO laptop a chance to donate $400 and send one of the laptops to a needy child and one to themselves.

There were enough XO laptops for this Nigerian classroom.

(Credit: Ahmad Dan-Hamidu)

Harry McCracken, editor in chief of PC World, is still waiting for his XO laptop. He was one of the first to participate in the promotion, donating $400 to the OLPC on November 12.

Originally, the OLPC told McCracken that he'd have his XO by Christmas, but that got pushed into January, and now representatives tell him he "might have good news in February."

PC World did a more in-depth story on the problems the OLPC is having fulfilling the second part of the "Give One, Get One" program. An OLPC representative said the organization is prioritizing shipments of XO laptops to needy countries, which probably makes sense. But the laptops are in short supply, and issues with addressing and order tracking have compounded the problems.

Peter Glaskowsky of the CNET Blog Network received his XO laptop before New Year's Day, so some shipments are apparently making it through, but the whole affair is another example of the OLPC's rough start to its charitable venture.

The price of the XO laptop has risen steadily, the mass production of the device has been delayed, and founder Nick Negroponte has engaged in a very public spat with Intel over the right of OLPC members to market their own low-cost laptops to the world's developing nations.

Lesson learned: Just because something can run two operating systems doesn't mean it's a "dual-boot" system.

Microsoft put the kibosh on talk of a dual-boot XO laptop after OLPC chairman and founder Nick Negroponte told IDG News Service Wednesday that the two organizations are working on such a project. "While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Child's XO laptop," a Microsoft representative said in a statement Thursday.

While that might appear to be a flat-out denial, in a way, it depends on what your definition of "dual-boot" is, to paraphrase Slick Willie.

The OLPC and Microsoft are working on an XO laptop that would ship with the Linux operating environment designed by the OLPC, but that could "securely reflash" over to a Windows environment stored on an SD card and back, according to Walter Bender of the OLPC. If Negroponte wasn't misquoted calling it a "dual-boot system," then he misspoke, Bender said, also noting he wasn't there during the interview in question.

So what does that mean? That plan wouldn't seem to result in a dual-boot system in the strictest sense, using Apple's Boot Camp technology as the example. But Microsoft's plan for the XO was always to have Windows boot off a 2GB flash memory card, since it needs more than the 1GB of flash memory that ships with the XO in order to run even a stripped-down version of Windows and Office.

While that's a little different from a "dual-boot system," it is a method that will allow Linux and Windows to run the same laptop, which is perhaps where Negroponte's confusion began.

However, Microsoft hinted that in the future, Negroponte might not be the best spokesman for anything about the XO related to the software giant. When it comes to the progress of the Windows-based XO, "Microsoft recommends contacting the company directly for any further updates," it said in a statement.

Apparently Nick Negroponte is willing to work with some huge powerful corporations whose interests compete with his own.

Negroponte told IDG News Service Wednesday that the OLPC project is working with Microsoft on a version of the XO laptop that would be capable of booting either Linux--the current OS--or Windows. It appears the two organizations are shooting for something like Apple's Boot Camp: not true virtualization, but the ability to boot either operating system depending on the applications you'd need to run.

Nigerian students check out their XO laptops, which might soon run Windows and Linux.

(Credit: Khaled Hassounah)

This could help the OLPC address some of the reasons why a few governments have spurned its XO laptop in favor of Intel's Classmate, which runs either Linux or Windows, but not in dual-boot fashion. While the XO's design is certainly innovative compared to many of the other options out there, the support model is not. XO customers are essentially responsible for supporting the product themselves, and some governments haven't wanted to snap up an unproven technology product with the additional support burden.

Microsoft and the OLPC have been talking for months about getting Windows to run on the XO laptop, but until now the discussion had appeared to indicate that project would result in two different XOs, a Linux one and a Windows one. A dual-boot XO is an entirely different prospect altogether, one that might require additional processing power, storage, memory, or all three.

The news comes less than a week after the bitter divorce between the OLPC and Intel over Intel's Classmate PC. The OLPC wants Intel to stop selling in the same markets in which the OLPC--equipped with an AMD processor--is being promoted.

Microsoft has also derided the OLPC in the past, preferring to focus on its Windows Starter Edition product or an entirely different notion of bringing computing to the developing world on cell phones. Just this week at CES, Bill Gates said "OLPC hasn't done that well. We're in literally over 100 countries with special versions of Windows, including Starter Edition. OLPC is nowhere compared to where we are on this thing."

Who knows whether this is another marriage doomed from the start, but give Negroponte credit for recognizing the need for Windows on the XO. Like it or not, it's a Windows-dominated world, and pretending that developing nations won't want access to the huge library of Windows applications out there isn't really serving their needs.

And a dual-boot solution is an elegant way of supporting both operating systems without forcing one or the other on the user. I wonder if a dual-boot XO would require beefier hardware, and therefore nudge that cost up a little more, but it's unclear right now what type of performance requirements we'd be looking at with this version of Windows.

Nick Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child project, came out swinging at Intel on Friday, one day after the chipmaker decided to leave the group.

The OLPC's goal of bringing low-cost technology to children in developing countries apparently conflicts with Intel's goal of running a business. Even though the two agreed to put aside their differences in July, it's pretty clear that they never actually became friends.

"We at OLPC have been disappointed that Intel did not deliver on any of the promises they made when they joined OLPC; while we were hopeful for a positive, collaborative relationship, it never materialized," Negroponte said in a statement distributed by the OLPC on Friday.

Intel cited "fundamental differences" in describing its exit from the group Thursday; this appears to be the classic "creative musical differences" breakup.

Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the OLPC

(Credit: OLPC)

Quite simply, Negroponte wanted Intel to stop selling its Classmate laptop in regions where he was trying to sell the XO laptop. "Intel continued to disparage the XO laptop in developing nations that had already decided to partner with OLPC (Uruguay and Peru), with countries that were in the midst of choosing a laptop solution (Brazil and Nigeria), and even small and remote places (Mongolia)," Negroponte said.

Intel has never been shy about its desire to sell the Classmate PC as one of many possible products for the developing world, and that seems to have offended Negroponte. "As we said in the past, we view the children as a mission; Intel views them as a market."

But Negroponte also said Intel's version of the XO laptop just wasn't that good. "The best Intel could offer in regards to an "Intel inside" XO laptop was one that would be more expensive and consume more power--exactly the opposite direction of OLPC's stated mandate and vision," Negroponte said.

An Intel representative declined to comment on the cost or power consumption of any chips slated for the XO laptop, which currently uses a Geode processor made by Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices.

And so it goes. It's always heartening to see two organizations disparage each other over who has the more appropriate vision for saving the world through technology--which assumes, of course, that notion is even possible.

Few would argue that it's a bad idea to connect students in impoverished lands to the outside world, but should they use custom laptops designed specifically for their needs, running open-source software and free from the Microsoft monopoly? Should they have access to the same technology that's available at Best Buy, but at a more reasonable price? Would all this time and effort be better spent on technology infrastructure in some of these nations?

Negroponte seems to think that because he's running a nonprofit with a "mission," he's entitled to a lock on the developing world and that the XO laptop is the only thing that can bridge the digital divide. That, of course, is preposterous; competition between firms is what improves products and brings down costs over time, and to expect Intel and other companies to just pass on burgeoning demand for computers in developing countries is pretty naive.

But I agree with Charlie Demerjian over at The Inquirer: the tone of this squabble is beneath Intel. Negroponte's project is well-intentioned, and the XO isn't a terrible product. Sure, he doesn't seem to really understand how to run a business venture, and he seems to have a bit of a messianic complex, but he really is trying to improve the lives of poor children.

The developing world needs more than one laptop. The folks at the OLPC do not have a divine right to sell laptops to poor cities and towns, and Intel isn't winning a lot of PR points by slamming a nonprofit.

And maybe, just maybe, some enterprising engineer in one of those developing countries might actually come up with their own idea for a laptop best suited for the needs of their people.

What are Intel and the OLPC going to do then, belittle the first homegrown laptop designer in Mongolia? Perhaps the best way to help developing countries get in on the technology revolution is to teach them how to design--not merely assemble--their own products, rather than coming to them from lofty perches in Cambridge and Santa Clara saying, "Don't worry, we know best."

Well, that was short: Intel has announced it is leaving the One Laptop Per Child project.

The news, first reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal in an e-mail alert, comes just six months after Intel and OLPC founder Nick Negroponte agreed to settle their differences and join forces, united in their goal to bring computing power to emerging nations. The breakup comes after Negroponte apparently wasn't willing to share Intel with others.

Khaled Hassounah, director of the OLPC in Africa and the Middle East, demonstrates an XO laptop to a classroom of students in Nigeria.

(Credit: Ahmad Dan-Hamidu)

According to Intel, Negroponte asked the chipmaker to stop selling its Classmate PC while it was part of the OLPC, which is currently shipping its XO laptop based on a chip from AMD. The Classmate PC was one of the sources of friction between Negroponte and Intel before they joined forces in July. Negroponte went on 60 Minutes in May and accused Intel of dumping Classmate PCs below cost in order to keep OLPCs out of the hands of needy children.

Intel and OLPC were working on an Intel-based version of the XO laptop, according to Agnes Kwan, an Intel spokeswoman, but the OLPC insisted that Intel end its production of the Classmate PC. Even more surprising, Intel is saying that the OLPC actually asked the chipmaker to stop working with any company that produces low-cost laptops, such as Asus' Eee PC.

"We have said for a long time that we don't believe there will be one single solution" for getting laptops in the hands of poor children, Kwan said. "There are some basic fundamental differences in our approaches."

It was nighttime in frigid Cambridge, Mass., home of the OLPC when the news broke. No one answered the phone at the company headquarters, and an e-mail to public relations representatives seeking comment on Intel's allegations was not immediately returned.

Intel's Classmate PC

(Credit: Michael Kanellos/CNET News.com)

If this went down the way Intel is claiming, Negroponte's move is baffling. The OLPC project hasn't exactly been a huge success, but the goal is noble, and the "Give One, Get One" program seemed to generate some interest among tech-savvy do-gooders.

But the move sort of reminds me of NBC's Jeff Zucker, demanding a cut of iPod revenue in return for selling NBC shows through iTunes at Apple's pricing terms. Did the OLPC really think Intel would stop supplying other companies with low-cost chips simply because it asked? It would be sort of like if Dell asked Intel to stop selling HP and Apple Core 2 Duo chips, simply because Dell thought its latest XPS laptop was a more righteous product.

I'll update if I hear back from the OLPC, because it's quite possible there's much more to this story.