We realize, of course, that we’ve maybe gotten just a little bit carried away with infographics and embedded documents here at TeleRead over the past couple of days.
But when we stumbled across the following One Laptop Per Child 7 Years Later infographic this morning, we simply couldn’t help ourselves: we had to share it with you.
Thanks to OnlineColleges.net for making the infographic available. And while you’re at it, check out the One Laptop Per Child website; it’ll make you feel better about humanity for the rest of the day. (Or at least until you walk out your front door!)
Compiled By: OnlineColleges.net
I remember when this was going to be the great thing to bring electronic reading to the masses. The funny thing is, it could have been the iPad (just as we all hoped Palm’s great invention would be the iPad instead of some underpowered netbook). I think we got caught up in fantasies of electronic paper, hand-cranks and other things and lost sight of the simplicity that the iPad has brought. Of course, for reading, the iPad is a bit big and heavy, but so was the one laptop per child.
Rob Preece
Hey Rob, I don’t actually remember that. The main thing I remember about the XO–from years ago–was that it would be sent primarily to children in developing countries. If you take a look at the OLPC site, you’ll see that this machine definitely has changed many thousands of young lives for the better.
I’m actually really interested in seeing any old articles or blog posts that spoke about the XO’s potential to bring electronic reading to the masses, though. If you happen to stumble across any online, would you mind either adding a comment here, or shooting them to me in an email at deldridge at napco dot com? Thanks so much! (And as always, thanks for commenting.)
I’ve been involved with the OLPC project in Vietnam (which I see doesn’t get mentioned in the infographic for some reason), both in localizing the software and supporting a couple of the in-country clusters.
Lack of teacher training is certainly a problem: some teachers appeared afraid of computers in student’s hands. Some students simply saw the computers as social toys. However, many others made great use of them, and the OLPC local clusters also empowered some very poor communities.
Local coders became involved in developing the software, and the Sugar (OLPC software) project is firmly ensconced in the growing free-software community in Vietnam and greater Asia.
If you want to achieve major change (which one-laptop-per-poor-child definitely was) then you have to plan carefully, learn from each stage and take the long view. OLPC have done OK. 🙂