Its good to see quite a bit more detail emerging about the OLPC , (One Laptop Per Child), project. I showed this video, of the user interface, to our students on the Foundation Degree in Digital Media for Educators at the University of Hull. This generated some deep discussion which soon expanded from user interfaces, to issues of accessibility, the digital divide, our roles as educators and how digital technologies may affect social control and democracy.
The interface itself, based on a user centered approached, seems stimulating and intuitive. It has been designed to promote thinking, creation and collaboration using the built-in connectivity and software. The focus of how the laptop will be used is activities rather than applications. I think this should send out a clear message to developers of educational ICT products. Some of the the, very positive, reactions from the students; "brilliant", "I want this". " why can't we have this in our schools?" Many of these questions and issues are addressed on OLPC wiki.
Lets hope this project succeeds and becomes a reality, worldwide. Although India has recently declined to participate, Rwanda has committed to the project with plans for a million. An update on the projects progress can be found here on the OLPC website.
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