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]]>Today we're announcing that we have decided to shut down OLPC News. That means we'll stop publishing new content but we won't take the site offline.
In retrospective this is something that I should have done six months ago when Wayan first brought this up. Or at the very least I should have simply used my Happy New Year from OLPC News post to do so because reading through it now it actually says almost everything I'd want to say in a goodbye post.
So rather than repeat myself, my next thought was to take you on a quick trip down memory lane into how I got started on this rollercoaster ride with OLPC News and OLPC 7 ½ years ago. However 100 words in I realized that I was about to really repeat myself because I wrote all that up 2 ½ years ago when I formally took over the site and announced the Post-Wayan Era.
As such all that really remains to be said here is to thank all those who made OLPC happen (else, we would have had nothing to write about) and everyone who contributed to, commented (and yes, that also includes you Mephisto), shared, and read OLPC News and for making the past 7 years here such an amazing experience.
Looking at Google Analytics shows that we've had more than 2.2 million unique visitors and over 7.3 million pageviews since the site was launched. Including Wayan's Goodbye One Laptop per Child, OLPC Association's reply to it, and this final piece we'll have published 1842 articles which received a total of more than 16,000 comments. Aside of all these numbers I think it's fair to say that OLPC News has had a significant impact on the discussions around OLPC and within the wider ICT for Education (ICT4E) community (though I'm well aware that there's a range of opinions on whether that impact was positive or negative;-).
As for myself: What I wrote in that Happy New Year post back on December 31 still very much applies:
The core challenge that drives me remains figuring out how to integrate information and communication technologies in education in developing countries.
So while I will definitely remain part of the olpc community, I'll also continue to explore other approaches to improve learning with the support of technology. Given how much I enjoy writing you also shouldn't be surprised to stumble across the occasional post by yours truly on one or another ICT4E outlet. Especially since I strongly believe that the larger ICT4E world can still learn a lot from the aggregated experiences around OLPC and thereby avoid what Alan Kay once called "re-inventing the flat tire".
If you want to keep in touch please feel free to e-mail me at christoph@derndorfer.eu, keep an eye out for the occasional post on my personal blog or simply follow me on Google+ or Twitter.
Resumen en español: Hoy estamos anunciando que hemos decidido cerrar OLPC News.
En retrospectiva esto es algo que debería haber hecho hace seis meses, cuando Wayan por primera vez lo sugirió. O por lo menos debería haber simplemente usado mi Feliz Año Nuevo de OLPC NEWS articulo para hacerlo ya que lo leo ahora realmente dice casi todo lo que me gustaría decir en un post de despedida.
Así que en lugar de repetir a mí mismo mi siguiente pensamiento fue que le llevará en un viaje rápido como me inicié en este viaje con OLPC News y OLPC hace 7 años y medio. Sin embargo despues de 100 palabras me di cuenta de que yo estaba a punto de realmente repetirme porque escribí todo esto hace 2 años y medio cuando tomé formalmente el sitio y anuncié la era post-Wayan.
Como todo lo que realmente aún no se ha dicho aquí es como dar las gracias a todos los que hizieron posible a OLPC (sino habríamos tenido nada que escribir) y todos que contribuyeron, comentaron (y sí, eso incluye también a ti Mephisto;-), compartieron y leyeron OLPC News y para hacer los últimos 7 años aquí una experiencia increíble.
Google Analytics muestra que hemos tenido más de 2,2 millones de visitantes únicos y más de 7,3 millones de páginas vistas desde que se lanzó el sitio. Incluyendo los dos posts de Wayan de la semana pasada y esta pieza final habremos publicado 1.842 artículos que han recibido un total de más de 16.000 comentarios. Aparte de todos estos números creo que es justo decir que OLPC News ha tenido un impacto significativo en las discusiones en torno a OLPC y dentro de la comunidad más amplia de las TIC para la Educación (ICT4E) (aunque estoy muy consciente de que hay una gama de opiniones acerca de si ese impacto ha sido positivo o negativo;-)
En cuanto a mí: Lo que escribí en ese mensaje Feliz Año Nuevo de nuevo el 31 de diciembre todavía es muy válido:
El reto principal que me impulsa sigue siendo encontrar la manera de integrar las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en la educación en los países en desarrollo.
Así, mientras que sin duda seguir siendo parte de la comunidad olpc, yo también voy a seguir explorar otros enfoques para mejorar el aprendizaje con el apoyo de la tecnología. Teniendo en cuenta lo mucho que me gusta escribir también no debe sorprenderse de tropezar con un mensaje mio en una o en otra publicacion sobre ICT4E. Sobre todo porque creo firmemente que el mundo ICT4E todavía puede aprender mucho de las experiencias globales alrededor OLPC y así evitar lo que Alan Kay una vez llamó "volver a inventar la rueda pinchada".
Si desea mantenerse en contacto por favor no dude en enviarme un correo electrónico a christoph@derndorfer.eu, mantener un ojo hacia fuera para el puesto ocassional en mi blog personal o simplemente seguirme en Google+ o Twitter.
]]>While the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, the Boston branch of our favorite laptop project is dead, the OLPC Association, the Miami-based group focused on XO sales, jumped to life yesterday and pronounced its viability.
Here is Giulia D'Amico, Vice President of Business Development, on their present and future:
OLPC's mission to empower the world's children through education is far from over. OLPC is thriving and making more inroads at bringing education to those who can't easily access it. OLPC recently formed a strategic alliance with the Zamora Teran family through many of their enterprises and their philanthropic foundation, the "Fundación Zamora Teran to deliver XO laptops not only to Central and South America, but also to Africa.
Aside from distributing more laptops in several schools in Costa Rica, Uruguay is receiving its first 50k units of the XO-4 Touch (running Android) in a few weeks' time. In addition, the XO Tablet is currently available directly through governments and NGOs, as well as in Europe and Canada and through all major retail outlets in the United States including Walmart, Amazon, Toys 'R Us among the others.
OLPC also has outsourced many of the software and development units because the organization is becoming more hardware and OS agnostic, concentrating on its core values - education. As an example, we've partnered with the Smithsonian Museum to bring feature-rich, interactive and more targeted content to our young learners.
We have more exciting things planned in the horizon including the implementation of very large scale projects in several regions of the world, so be sure to stay tuned.
For those following along at home, the XO Tablet is interesting, I like it for the US market, but I don't see it as a developing world education solution.
]]>Here is a question for you: 8 years on, would you recommend anyone start a new deployment with XO-1 laptops?
With the hardware now long past its life expectancy, spare parts hard to find, and zero support from the One Laptop Per Child organization, its time to face reality. The XO-1 laptop is history. Sadly, so is Sugar. Once the flagship of OLPC's creativity in redrawing the human-computer interaction, few are coding for it and new XO variants are mostly Android/Gnome+Fedora dual boots.
Finally, OLPC Boston is completely gone. No staff, no consultants, not even a physical office. Nicholas Negroponte long ago moved onto the global literacy X-Prize project.
That's not to say the OLPC idea is dead. OLPC Miami is still servicing the major deployments in Uruguay, Peru, and Rwanda, and has licensed commercial rights to the brand to Sakar/Vivitar, which introduced an XO Tablet for American children.
Yet let us be honest with ourselves. The great excitement, energy, and enthusiasm that brought us together is gone. OLPC is dead. In its place, is the reality that technology is a force in education, and we all need to be vigilant about when, where, and how it's used.
So take a moment to mourn the loss of OLPC, and then join us for the larger Educational Technology Debate on where all ICT4Edu efforts are going.
PS: A hearty shout-out to Mike Lee, Christoph Derndorfer, Brian Berry, Yama Ploskonka, Jon Camfield, and all the rest who made this journey the ride of a lifetime. Thanks, and see you on the next roller coaster.
]]>I have written a PhD thesis about OLPC, Akila and the school which I defended at Aarhus University in Denmark on the 27th of February:
There is, amongst others, a chapter describing the theories and debates around OLPC, there is one investigating how the initiative rose to fame and there are several more specific investigations of the laptops at Akila's school (e.g. chapters 5 and 6).
In this post I would like to share some general thoughts with the OLPC News community and, if possible, have them debated in the comments.
Let me give away my position from the start: I was/am highly enthusiastic about the opportunities of new technology for learning (I have benefited from these my whole life). But studying OLPC and the project at Akila's school has convinced me that we need to fundamentally re-conceptualise what it is we do when bringing laptops, tablets, internet, etc. into impoverished settings.
What OLPC projects do, I argue, is not to bring in laptops, but to reconfigure already existing networks of relations between children, teachers, hardware, software, pedagogy, parents, poverty and so forth.
But my argument is not only that we should re-conceptualise what we do, but also what we bring. What is it, really, that we are working so hard to deploy/implement/sustain?
I argue that XO laptops (or tablets) too are networks of relations. Not objects, not tools, but networks of relations.
The various XOs are, in the strongest (ontological) meaning of the word, sitting on each their respective network within which several actors are busy deploying each their own variant of the XO. I have described these many criss-cross deployments as a development encounter.
At Akila's school, for instance, the different deployments running through the network make the XOs suffer from a multiple laptop disorder. The laptops have several different identities and logics, some of which are even mutually exclusive and in friction.
The point is that not only is Akila's laptop different from itself, it is also different from Negroponte's laptop, or the ones in Peru and Uruguay.
What laptops are and what they can do is the outcome of dispersed negotiation (in the network).
In fact, we readers of OLPC News are part of this negotiation. When I claim that laptops are networks, some of you may write (or, at least, think to yourself): "nonsense, that is not what they are; they are tools with which to learn; they are X, no, wait, they are X and Y, but, in either case, they are not networks".
This is not just your opinion, or mine, this is in very specific ways something we are working to realise in praxis.
In this outlook, the rational, modern world of stable identities (XO as formally described) causing well known effects (trojan horses, mega change, literacy, empowerment, digital inclusion, learning French in Paris...) has turned trickster.
The purpose, impact and logic of laptops are evasive and emergent - not beyond control and not within control.
Even Negroponte, when claiming that laptops (or tablets) are for helicopter deployments, must accept that it is not really for him to decide - he is not alone in the network. Or, that is, he may make helicopter deployments in Ethiopia, but not at Akila's school, in Uruguay and elsewhere.
The world is acting back at Negroponte just like the Nigerian teachers are acting back at the Sugar philosophy.
We (as in all of us working with OLPC projects around the world) invest ourselves in the network, we add to the laptop, and so too does children, parents, NGOs, Quanta, solar panels, satellites and everyone else.
Quanta adds assembly lines, some of you write activities, and I add a story about Akila to supplement Negropontes stories from Cambodia, Ethiopia and elsewhere.
By the way: how can satellites add to laptops? Well, the satellite-isp-company-network adds a rather substantial invoice to Akila's laptop each month in order for the laptop to bridge the digital divide.
So, what does this mean? That everything is relative and unpredictable?
No, but it is a call to attention that 'XO' is simply the name we give large heterogeneous ensembles (Sugar+Quanta+AMD+Plastic+Scratch+Akila+Teacher+Papert+Batteries....) in which the specific components differ from deployment to deployment.
I have tried to re-think (by way of many others) what it is that we do and what it is that we bring.
A good question to the community, besides from general comments, is, then, what do you think we do and what, really, are we bringing?
]]>Ahead of next week's Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas - an event which OLPC Association has repeatedly used for making announcements in recent years - Brad Linder from liliputing.com reports that OLPC Association and Vivitar will release a slightly updated version of the 7" XO Tablet. Additionally they will add a 10" version of the XO Tablet to the lineup.
Brad's article says that the updated 7" XO Tablet is expected to cost $150 whereas the 10" version should cost $200. There's no information on when these new tablets will become available and if they'll also be available outside of the United States.
As the comparison table I put together below shows the hardware upgrades compared to the currently available 7" XO Tablet are quite small. In fact the only core component that received a significant upgrade is the CPU which is reported to be a quad core model with an unknown frequency as opposed to the currently used 1.6GHz dual core version. The front and back cameras also received upgrades to more up-to-date specifications. The 10" version is reported to additionally include a GPS module and a larger battery.
Brad also writes that:
Vivitar says optional accessories will include a wireless keyboard and a few things you don't normally see marked as tablet accessories, including a digital microscope with up to 300x magnification and a digital telescope with up to 200x magnification.
The addition of these accessories doesn't come as much of a surprise given that OLPC Association showed off a microscope (which upon closer inspection looks to be this $27 AGPtek-branded model) and the telescope designed by the French Academy of Science to Engadget all the way back in May of 2013. At the time they were discussed as accessories for the XO-4 laptops but I assume that the accessories will be quite similar to what was shown back then.
At this point it is unknown whether the new XO Tablet's will also come with an updated version of Android and/or additional content accessible via OLPC Association's Dream interface.
Overall the upgrade of the 7" XO Tablet is nice but very incremental and hardly anything to call home about. The introduction of a 10" version might potentially attract some additional buyers although the reported 1024 x 768 resolution is definitely on the very low-end for such a large display. I'd say that based on the currently available information these announcements don't significantly improve the XO Tablet lineup's value proposition compared to other consumer products. But then again, it's not like the upgrades hurt it either.
So if you're interested in purchasing an XO Tablet then I'd suggest taking a look at one of the dozen or so articles we've published in which different people shared their experiences and impressions of the device, software, and content.
Resumen en español: Por delante del Consumer Electronic Show en Las Vegas - un evento que OLPC Association ha utilizado para hacer anuncios en los últimos años - Brad Linder desde liliputing.com informa que la OLPC Association y Vivitar lanzará una versión ligeramente actualizada del 7" Tablet XO . Además se va a agregar una versión de 10" de la XO Tablet. El artículo de Brad dice que se espera que la actualizacion del 7" XO Tablet va a costar 150 dólares , mientras que la versión de 10" debería costar $ 200. No hay información sobre cuándo estas nuevas tablets llegaran y si también estarán disponibles fuera de los Estados Unidos.
En general, la actualización del 7" Tablet XO es bonito pero muy gradual y no muy excitante. La introducción de una version con 10" podría potencialmente atraer a algunos compradores adicionales aunque la reportada resolución 1024 x 768 es en la gama baja muy para una pantalla de este tamaño. Yo diría que en base a la información disponible en la actualidad estos anuncios no mejoran significativamente la propuesta de valor de los XO Tablets en comparación con otros productos. Pero al mismo tiempo no es que las mejoras lastiman tampoco.
As I sit here and go through our posts from 2013 instead of getting ready for tonight's celebrations I can't shake one thought from my head: It's been a weird year when it comes to One Laptop per Child.
And no, I don't mean that it's been a year in which nothing happened. However as you can tell from the low quantity of posts - in the past 12 months we've published only about two dozen articles - there haven't been too many things that got me excited enough to start writing about them. The reality is that much of what has happened has been somewhat depressing.
Even though many people within the global olpc community have denied it for much of the year it's now become painfully obvious that OLPC as an organization is very different today then it was back in 2012 and earlier. Of course different doesn't automatically mean worse but personally I can neither get excited about nor much believe in the value of the XO Tablet which is what OLPC Association in Miami largely focused on in 2013.
The core challenge that drives me remains figuring out how to integrate information and communication technologies in education in developing countries. We've learned a great deal about what works and what doesn't work through OLPC since it was launched all the way back in 2005. And I dare say the world is a better place thanks to the efforts of the organization, its employees and everyone involved in the global community.
However I feel that this year has shown that for many reasons we've reached an impasse.
OLPC Association as an organization is no longer looking at the right questions, doesn't come up with relevant answers, and has hence lost the capacity in terms of people and associated leadership role that the capital letter OLPC has had for the majority of the past few years.
As a lower-case olpc community and wider ecosystem we have not quite figured out how to deal with that change. Yes, people are working on interesting technology solutions, some of which might prove to be highly valuable down the road. But beyond that it's not clear who will solve - or at least try to solve - the tough challenges related to what I've called the six criteria for successful implementations of ICT for Education projects in developing countries:
If we want to be successful we will have to address these challenges ourselves and head-on rather hoping for someone else to do it for us. After all that's the spirit that led to the creation of OLPC and everything that has happened since then in the first place.
The question - regardless of whether you're in Austria or Zambia - no longer is whether to use information and community technologies in education or not. It's about what technologies to use and even more importantly how to use them. If we want to have a say in answering these questions instead of seeing the world's classrooms filled with inappropriate devices and outdated pedagogy approaches we better up our game and focus on what's important. Else we'll find ourselves a couple of years down the road, standing on the sidelines, complaining about this missed opportunity, and wondering what we did wrong. And I don't know about you but that's not what I want to be doing come 2018.
With these thoughts in mind I wish all of you a Happy New Year and look forward to 2014! :-)
Resumen en español: Como ya estoy muy tarde para una fiesta no me queda el tiempo para hacer una traduccion al español pero si alguien tiene una pregunta que me avisan en un comentario o por correo electronico. Feliz año nuevo desde Austria!
Mark your calendar! We hope to see you at the fifth OLPC San Francisco Community Summit from October 18 to 20, 2013.
The summit will be held at San Francisco State University's downtown campus at 5th & Market (835 Market St.) San Francisco. We will be opening a call for proposals, posters, speedgeek, and such in a few days. We begin on Friday, Oct 18th with a welcome reception and wrap up on Sunday, Oct 20th with a closing party. On behalf of the OLPC San Francisco volunteer community and our hosts at San Francisco State University, I invite you to the summit. Let's get together, so we may walk far.
OLPC San Francisco Community Summit 2013 is a community event that brings together educators, technologists, anthropologists, enthusiasts, champions and volunteers. We share stories, exchange ideas, solve problems, foster community and build collaboration around the One Laptop per Child project and its mission worldwide.
By: Sameer Verma
]]>Its not often one gets to brag about owning the only gadget in a whole country - but as the XO Tablet is only available from the USA, and the Australia arm of OLPC aren't touching it, right now this is the case. Thanks to the generosity of fellow EdTech experimenters Wayan Vota and John Hunt, my 6 year old daughter has now logged about 10 hours on this latest iteration of what a 'green machine' can be and I'm ready to report some first impressions.
I'll get to her thoughts shortly - but first, given the at times highly charged nature of all-things OLPC, some context. I have written for OLPC News before, am the Dad of a child in the target audience for the XO Tablet, and am a long-time OLPC supporter (with nearly 4 years of being employed by a state education department to support XO deployments). I'm also a well-known exponent of that other transformative mobile platform, the iPad, of which I've owned every model and even co-founded the Slide2learn.net community to support. I've also owned a Nexus7 Android tablet since its launch. What I'm trying to say is that I couldn't have been more excited to get an XO tablet that sits right at the convergence of all these interests.
So, first impressions: I love the green case. Its chunky and grip-able and the ring is genuinely useful. Plus, buying such a case separately would immediately add another $20 to the price, so again this puts the XO Tablet ahead. The size and weight also are good for the target audience where I've found larger 10 inch tablets to be un-ergonomic for smaller hands to hold for longer periods.
As Wayan has already noted, the next thing you come to with the XO Tablet is really the software. 200 apps is a good starting collection, as is the 'I dream' interface for curating the experience of browsing them. I have no idea how someone creates such a customised 'master' of a mobile OS and is able to mass-deploy it, but I wish such a process was available easily for any school or district rather than having to make do with more local configuration options.
I have been disappointed with some of the apps however. The very first dream my daughter chose was 'Doctor' - but when we opened the first app to measure her pulse via the camera - nothing worked... There are also some apps I've come across that are in fact just trial versions. It can also seem like a bit of a waste when you open an 'I dream' category to find there are only perhaps 3 apps listed. I had in fact expected that when choosing an occupation to explore there would be videos, websites and other guided resources. So, though it provides a good framework for guiding students use of the included apps, OLPC has a lot of room to expand on and really flesh out the 'I dream' categories. I'd especially love if there was a way for parents/teachers to add additional categories or even resources into the existing ones. I'd put my hand up to help.
So what else did miss 6 find? Turns out her favourite section so far has been the language videos. She's spent ages learning Italian by repeating the phrases in that video (which our 2 year old also happily sat in for). She has also enjoyed the solar system app that lets you zoom in and out on the planets and associated info ('I want to be an astronaut') and the puzzles challenges of the Blockish app.
Other major pluses of the XO Tablet in my opinion are the account settings that let the tablet be used by multiple kids, and long term expansion made possible by the SD card slot. I'm also looking forward to exploring the usage data that the tablet is recording as miss 6 uses it to help me as a parent understand her learning interests better.
So at the end of the day, for US$149, my first impressions are that the XO Tablet looks to be a great learning tool - not iPad mini class, but then its less than half the price. How reliable it proves over time, and how useful the promised port of Sugar ends up being we'll have to wait and see - but in its current iteration, with a good case and good range of starter apps, its got to be the best low-cost tablet option currently available for younger 1st and spanish-world learners that I know of.
Jonathan Nalder is a long time OLPC supporter who is also an mLearning project officer, teacher, Apple Distinguished Educator and HP Catalyst Fellow. He writes regularly at uLearning.edublogs.org, has articles at Appolearning.com and Appitic.com, co-founded Slide2learn.net, has a Masters in ICT for Learning, and delights to make the connections between tech, pedagogy, planning and learning.
I think that has been the great, unfulfilled promise of the OLPC universe--the promise of an inexpensive laptop that could be used by children around the world to learn. The promise is right there in the name: One Laptop Per Child.
And while OLPC has been pretty successful in putting XO Laptops into the hands of Third World kids around the world, comparing the specifics to the original plan shows that things didn't quite work out the way they were supposed to.
A rugged casing, a direct-sunlight-visible display, mesh networking technology and more, the XO laptop came with incredibly innovative hardware that made sense for the OLPC mission. Precisely none of these innovations are included with the XO Tablet.
However, where the XO Laptop lacked software that would ready kids for other, more advanced machines, the XO Tablet runs a full version of the Android mobile OS with an interface specifically designed for kids to use for education. On top of that, the tablet comes with 100 educational apps pre-installed. This will allow children to graduate to other tablets and OS with ease.
Of course, you can't deploy an XO Tablet to a rough environment.
It can't be repaired easily, and just looking at it suggests it's simply not as tough as the original XO laptop. Basically, it's your run-of-the-mill tablet with decent specs and an OK price with software that will rock your kids' (First) world. And there's your problem.
What the XO Tablet doesn't do is further the immediate goal of OLPC. In some ways, it's hard to imagine why OLPC licensed the "OLPC" and "XO" brand out to Vivitar, a company that itself is a licensed brand.
The goal of OLPC is to put inexpensive educational devices in the hands of children who otherwise wouldn't have access to said devices. A Android tablet that sells on Amazon for $150 hardly fits the bill that OLPC promised eight years ago when they announced "the $100 laptop."
And that's the real shame of it.
Sure, the XO laptop has changed the worlds of children around the globe, and the XO Tablet will likely help First World kids get prepared for the tablet-run world of tomorrow. But the actual goal of OLPC still has not been met. $100 educational devices that are so cheap that every kid in the world can have one. When you're educating kids, you're educating the future.
thepete is a writer, artist and tech fanatic and writes about his Google Glass and other things at thepete.com
I am Mr. Guest Post, and I have been a fan of OLPC ever since Nicholas Negroponte made his ideas known. I still have an XO-1 Laptop from the G1G1 in late 2007. I stuck by my green machine during the hiccups until the software stabilized. I even disassembled the bottom half to add electrical tape to fix the sticky keys. Gnome was a nice feature as well. The last few updates have made my XO-1 slow, and I think the thing is getting long in the tooth.
What I would love is a trade up to the XO-4. I know that isn't going to happen. So, I bought a XO Tablet and have been playing around with it for a few days. Here what I think:
My first impressions of the XO Tablet are positive. I love this thing.
It is snappy. I have no problems with its responsiveness, zooming, video playing, music, and ebooks. In direct sunlight, you can't see the screen, but in the shade I can see the screen.
Other observations include:
So I will say it again: the XO Tablet kicks-butt. I am still getting to know my XO Tablet. You can let me know if there are others things I can investigate on the tablet in the comments below.
Disclaimer
I ordered the XO Tablet from Amazon, and I also bought some accessories. The following products are meant as information only and not as an endorsement. They worked for me just fine.
I am Edward Lukacs and I have from the first considered tablets to be excellent playthings for those who use computers as adult toys. For adult work, on the other hands, they might best be considered large mobile phones for people who want to check email, etc. Secondly, the XO Tablet violates the most fundamental concepts of the original One Laptop Per Child concept, i.e., the use solely of open source and free-ware programs, to be added to a worldwide repository of instructional materials by people in the field.
I use a laptop as a convenient vehicle for writing fiction and for general written email communication. Actually buying a computer without a keyboard never entered my mind; for serious work the idea is absolutely ludicrous. In fact, I have retired my modern HP laptop for an older and upgraded Compaq Presario B2200 in order to get away from the idiotic 16:9 screen format and back to a more usable 4:3 shape, so much better for word processing.
A Dumbing Down
In both cases, the XO Tablet and the newer wide format, the idea seems to be to optimize things for the entertainment of "The Great Unwashed" over their serious use in productive work. To which I add about the tablet that its sale in mainly the US market and with English software, with the active discouragement of foreign language software contributions is somehow appropriate.
After all, how else is a semi-literate American going to convince him/herself that they are teaching their child when in order to operate a true laptop, the adults might actually need to be literate? No, the organization has apparently decided to cash in its chips after making a lot of self-serving noise while simultaneously proving inept at their main mission, i.e., to make available and distribute at least a few hundred million XO-1x models to an easy billion waiting students instead of a few million.
A Return to Original Ideals
OLPC was good idea, a superb one, in fact. Why has it not succeeded? Could it have withered and died at the hands of officious do-gooders with an ego problem? Probably. But perhaps it might be possible to get the original concept on track by starting over.
ARM is going to produce an energy-efficient 64-bit processor, with prototype out this year. Perhaps the original case could be used, with a drop-in replacement motherboard with a huge (and far cheaper than in 2007) amount of memory and a modest solid-state drive? I cannot imagine that such a board could not be made now at a far lower cost than the originals seven or eight years ago.
Maybe, just maybe, if the work were done by good engineers, and in the back room and not in the educational reviews, a better and cheaper product could be produced, and in a more reasonable time. Then if politics and ego are removed from the distribution process, perhaps more of them could actually get into the hands of the children and teachers who actually need them? I think so, on both scores.
And truly, if we are ever to civilize this world and live in greater peace and harmony, it can only be done by educating every single child to the limit of their capacity.
Recently I was reading an XO Tablet review on Amazon, where Ram Dash is disappointed by the "horrible mishmash" of free applications on the XO Tablet. He was frustrated because the apps are not organized per age or grade level and most of them can be downloaded on the PlayStore for free.
He concludes his review by saying:
"Please do yourself a favor. For $10-$20 more, you can get a much better tablet such as a Kindle Fire HD or Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7-Inch, Wi-Fi) available here at Amazon. I've used Galaxy Tab before and mostly liked it."
Ram offers an interesting comparison I've heard a few times before. So let's do a side-by-side review of each device: XO Tablet, Kindle Fire HD, and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.
Hardware
The Kindle Fire is the only one with a HD screen, so it has a lead there. The Galaxy Tab is arguably the nicer looking device, but to be honest, all three are pretty much the same rectangular slab of glass and dark metal. The green bumper on the XO Tablet does appeal to kids, even as a teathing ring. But that green bumper would fit on any of the tablets.
Software
All three devices use Android, but the Kindle runs its own Android variant that is designed by Amazon. The XO Tablet has an additional special kid-friendly user interface that hides many of the administrative features and sorts the apps by activity areas and skill levels (see all the options thanks to Mike Lee).
Apps and Content
The Kindle Fire can connect to the Kindle store and of course Amazon, so there are a good number of apps and a huge content selection to choose from. Both the Galaxy Tab and the XO Tablet can connect to the Google Play Store so you can download whatever apps you want. However, only the XO Tablet has 160+ apps already installed and 100 books in English and Spanish.
Price
On Amazon, the XO Tablet is $149 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 is $169, while the Kindle Fire HD is $199. A more price competitive Kindle option would be the Kindle Fire 7 at $159. So they are all in a relatively close price range with each other.
Conclusion
Not only is the XO Tablet the cheapest option from the start, it comes with a solid selection of apps and content, a child-friendly UI, and a green bumper to differentiate it from all the other tablets on the market.
So to Ram Dash, I say you can keep your Kindles and Tabs, they are great for adults who want to fiddle with technology. But if you are buying a tablet computer for children who want to learn or parents who don't want to spend hours downloading and organizing apps, the XO Tablet is the easy choice.
It's been great to read Wayan's thoughts on the XO Tablet and see the photos and videos of his daughters taking the tablet through the toddler-approval process.
However when I read "The XO Tablet Just Killed the XO Laptop", I couldn't help but start up a text editor to write this piece. Why? Because I think the XO Tablet has some significant limitations when used in schools and developing countries.
Now, based on Wayan's comments I think it's clear that the XO Tablet comes with a lot of good content. In its current form that means good content for North American toddlers and children (and their paying parents). And as a recent press release indicates the 8,000 XO Tablets going to Uruguay will come preloaded with local content. It's good to see that such mass-customizations for the requirements of large orders are possible.
It's however much less clear how an individual would go about adding content and apps. Yes, I know that the XO Tablet has access to the Google Play store. But:
I think these three issues essentially describe the situation most potential XO Tablet users in schools and in developing countries find themselves in. With its Google Play for Education efforts Google is trying to address the first two issues. However the online store will only see its initial launch in fall 2013 and its website clearly says that:
"At this time, you should include your app in Google Play for Education only if it is targeting the US K-12 market."
Oh, and yes, mobile carrier billing and Gift Cards also do exist for Google Play however only for about a dozen countries.
As for the last issue: Even in the future I simply can't imagine a Google Play store which works without Internet connectivity. Android's very existence is based on the premise of getting more users online and connected to one of Google's many services. So I see zero incentives for Google to make an offline store available.
The reality today - and for the foreseeable future - is that the Android ecosystem (which the XO Tablet is built on) is designed with individual users with an Internet connection and credit card in mind. And guess what, that's quite far away from the reality of schools and developing countries today - and for the foreseeable future.
It's going to be very interesting to see how Uruguay addresses these issues in the aforementioned upcoming evaluation with 5- and 6-year-olds (which means pre-school and grade 1 pupils respectively).
In the meantime I think it's important to emphasize that the XO Tablet and the XO laptops were designed with very different environments, users, uses, and goals in mind. So at this point I personally would be very cautious to recommend the XO Tablet over the XO laptops to anyone planning to use them in schools or in developing countries.
Resumen en español: Ha sido genial para leer los pensamientos de Wayan sobre la XO Tablet y ver las fotos y los videos de sus hijas usandola. Sin embargo, cuando leí el articulo del jueves llamado "La XO Tablet acaba de matar a la XO Laptop" no podía dejar de poner en marcha un editor de texto para escribir este artículo. ¿Por qué? Porque creo que la XO Tablet tiene algunas limitaciones importantes cuando se utiliza en las escuelas y en los países en desarrollo.
La realidad hoy en día - y en el futuro inmediato - es que el ecosistema de Android (que la XO Tablet está basado) está diseñado con los usuarios individuales con una conexión a Internet y tarjeta de crédito en cuenta. Y adivinen qué, eso es bastante lejos de la realidad de las escuelas y de los países en desarrollo en la actualidad - y en el futuro previsible. Mientras tanto, yo creo que es importante destacar que la XO Tablet y la XO laptop fueron diseñados con ambientes, los usuarios, los usos y las metas muy diferentes en mente.
Así que en este momento yo personalmente sería muy cauteloso al recomendar la XO Tablet en vez de las XO laptops a cualquiera que esté planeando usarlas en escuelas o en países en desarrollo.
I recently received an email from a person who is running a small pilot program in Africa. They were seeking my advice on XO Laptops versus XO Tablets:
I currently am working with 4 schools with about 10 XO Laptops in each school. I want to add more computers to these schools this year. I have a choice. I can buy more XO Laptops or I can buy the new XO Tablet. Which do you think is best? We have made progress with the XO Laptop and I have an upcoming appointment with the Ministry.
My response was quite simple and quick: do not waste another penny or minute buying more XO Laptops. They were cutting edge in 2007. They were still cool in 2009. But today the hardware looks dated and without a touchscreen, oh so limiting.
Worse, the XO Laptop never came with any decent software (OS or applications) or content - you always had to hand code your own programs and go begging for ebooks and reference materials.
Buy the XO Tablet!
The XO Tablet solves all three major problems with the XO Laptop. First, it is standardized hardware - tried, tested, and usable around the world. Next, it has over 160 software applications preloaded and you can add more via Google Play store. Finally, it has hundreds of books already stored on the computer, ready for use on day 1.
Seriously, I cannot think of a single reason to invest in the XO Laptop - unless you already have an install base of hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of laptops that still need servicing and replacement.
The XO Tablet is that much better.
And now its available for worldwide shipping on eBay.