A Child's View of the OLPC

Finallyjoined!!! sends us a BBC account of a dad who traveled to Nigeria and brought back an XO laptop for his 9-year-old, Rufus. Here is Rufus's review, a child's view of OLPC. "Because it looks rather like a simple plastic toy, I had thought it might suffer the same fate as the radio-controlled dinosaur or the roller-skates he got last Christmas - enjoyed for a day or two, then ignored. Instead, it seems to provide enduring fascination... With no help from his Dad, he has learned far more about computers than he knew a couple of weeks ago, and the XO appears to be a more creative tool than the games consoles which occupy rather too much of his time."

Already?

[4solarisinfo]

I returned from Nigeria with a sample of the XO laptop

I did RTFA, and no mention of HOW he got the laptop... I know everyone was talking about these things ending up all over the world in the black market, don't tell me it's ALREADY there.

How long will that one work?

[AceJohnny]

I thought the XO laptops had a kill switch to disable them if they leaked out from their target demographic (african schools), into secondary markets?

Isn't the article's premise the exact situation which the OLPC designers feared?

Of course, the article mentions "a sample of the XO laptop", so I hope this this specific laptop wasn't obtained through such a secondary market...

A child's view of the $100 laptop is good and all

[drhamad]

But what about a child's view of the $200 laptop?

Also, somebody might have pointed this out already, but this guy took a laptop from Nigeria to bring to the UK? That seems to defeat the point (from how it's stated in the article, it doesn't seem that it was from the buy one/give one program).

Interesting reading about the chat feature

[Iphtashu Fitz]

I found int intriguing reading the part of the article about the chat system. He suddenly found himself able to chat with Spanish speaking kids. I wonder exactly how the whole OLPC chat system works and if this is truly a "feature" or a fluke. I say fluke because the article says the chat system identified itself as chatting with others in Nigeria. Will the OLPC's be "region encoded" so kids can only chat with other local kids? Or will kids be able to easily chat with kids from the other side of the world as well? I can see the second alternative, purposeful or not, as a way to help foster a knowledge of other cultures that these kids would otherwise be entirely unaware of. True, language differences would probably minimize the impact of this sort of thing, but as the article demonstrates even a language barrier isn't enough to keep curious kids from making friends half way around the world.

Re:Translation

[ByOhTek]

What does this have to do with cognitive dissonance?

That typically comes from paying a high price for a low return (not just financially/materially either). In this case it is financial/material, and it seems more like a low price/high return.

Re:Something smells...and it aint my pants

[MindPrison]

How does you wandering around with your DS have any bearing at all on how a totally different system with totally different software and totally different requirements works?

Yes, I realize that they have entirely different software, but as with ALL new things - its rarely so straightforward as that example. Heck...even with a WiFi enabled PDA its pretty difficult to get anywhere - let alone CHAT with someone - be it Jabber or anything else, you have to be in the right spot, all connections running perfectly and to get in properly. Its just painted so "rosy" that it seems more like a staged scenario rather than real life.

Believe me - I wish it success - but nothing like that happens the same day its released, give it a year or two - so many MANY people all over the world actually HAVE one - then we will talk.

children are overrated

[misanthrope101]

or at least their curiosity is. I have a Macbook and a Ubuntu desktop, and my kids (14, 16) have zero curiosity about either. There is nothing about kids that makes them magically curious about computer gear, programming, or whatever. Yes, they'll play DDR or Prince of Persia on the PS2, and they can write homework assignments with Abiword or OpenOffice, but "file>save as MS Word doc" is about as complex as their usage gets. I'm always bemused by the optimism that kids are going to be hacking perl scripts if they're given the opportunity. Kids are individuals, and those who are curious about computers are just curious about computers. The rest are not.

I even tried to entice my son by talking a bit about encryption, thinking he would make the connection of "aha! I can hide stuff from the old man!" but even that lure failed to get him to open the Missing Manual book. I keep hoping to find an encrypted container indicating that he's learned something, but alas he lacks my secretiveness. Kids today!

Re:Kids and computer

[d3ac0n]

Your 3-year old is advanced.

Not really.

My son learned how to do most of that (not counting playing CS. Although he does play some Web-based games at Noggin.com) at about 3 - 3/12. Now before you go saying "Well your son is just a genius." Please be aware, my son has Autism. He's not "normal" in any sense of the word, other than being physically healthy.

His learning is definitely behind that of his peers, requiring him to need a special in-school tutor to help him along. He's 5 now, and struggling along in 1st grade. Still, we're impressed with his progress so far, and are now looking for ways we can use his affinity for computers to help educate him.

The truth is, if parents would take just 5-15 minutes to sit down with their child at a computer and begin to use it with them, they would find that most kids would very quickly latch onto it, and soon be doing things with it themselves. I suspect that this will begin to happen more and more and the generation that was born into a world with computers and the internet as a common thing have kids of their own. Heck, it's ALREADY happening, if my son is any indication.

Don't sell your kids short. Get them in front of a computer and learning today. Their peers have already started.

Por fin... they can get ahead the EU & US

[emj]

Everyone says education is empowerment to the people, I think this is the first step to empower most people around the world. This is a step to help people/children easily communicate and play over large distances, talk and share ideas. You should take a million of these laptops and drop them on Lima, Peru, and see what happens. Imagine one million people using the computer to do new stuff, just producing new creative material, sharing, critizing.

This is actually a tool that would allow these counties to get ahead of EU & US. Because this will empower children when they are most active at learning, at 9 years old you can learn alot, that will get us alot of creative people, writers, programmers and artist in a 4-9 years.

The question is will these children need to learn english, or can they just create local economies, based on heir own language?

Re:Already?

[Anonymous Coward]

So no information in the article about the Nigerian that should have gotten that laptop instead, huh? I'm glad that this laptop is helping a privileged child in England instead of someone that really needs it.

Waiting period

[tepples]

Not just that, but how the heck do they manage this with an entirely open source project?

The laptop is Tivoized. The GNU GPL [gnu.org] requires Installation Information for software shipped as part of a consumer product, but it doesn't appear to rule out the possibility of a two-week waiting period [slashdot.org] to make sure that the laptop is not reported stolen.

Re:Already?

[Flwyd]

Especially since just last month you could pay about $400 to get one and support the production of one to a kid in the developing country. That's got to be cheaper than a trip to Nigeria...