OLPC

I began thinking a little more about this "One Laptop Per Child" issue that we discussed as a class on Wednesday. I was very intrigued by this concept and decided to explore it a little more.

From the third grad to the sixth grade, I lived on Kelley's Island, which is in the middle of Lake Erie. In the entire school (K-12), there were 25 students. My twin sister and I and one other girl made up our entire grade. Computers were a big deal at this school. I came from a school that had no computer in the classroom to a class that a had minimum of 5 computers in every class.

Laptops were also accessable. Most of our homework was required to be typed before it was turned in, and becasue this was often a requirement and sometimes work my not get done in class, there were laptops that you could sign out and take home.

Our discussion on OLPC immediately conjured thoughts of my experiences on Kelley's. What a great tool to have available for a classroom? I know Jenna expressed concern in the availability for every student. My suggestion would be to raise funds and apply for grants to create a classroom set of laptops that students could check out. These laptops could be used for classroom work as well as for studying for CDE's.

I believe the OLPC laptops are slightly targeted more towards yonger children (you can take a look at the programs and the laptop at http://laptopgiving.org/en/explore.php).

My suggestion for teachers would be to invest in a more adult set of laptops that students will likely use in the future such as apple or dell. There will most likely be more cost associated with utilizing a name brand computer but ultimately they may target our students more than the OPLC laptop.

Hilary