Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
This is the week that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project begins, and as such, is a major turning point in our field - perhaps the key turning point.

Photos from CNet of Nigerian children using their XO computers. See also this special report from CNet on the OLPC project. Software to emulate the XO interface on a Mac. James O'Hagan also links to a video describing the technology of the XO.

As a postscript, Will Richardson points out that, in contrast to the $200 it costs to provide a child with a laptop, about $14 billion dollars were spent on Easter last week. When did Easter become a holiday you have to buy things for? Where are the people, who act as guardians of morality in our society? I am sometimes thought of as a radical and an idealist. But there is no acceptable moral position, I would argue, except one that is fundamentally opposed to some of the major premises that inform the current social order - the ones that legitimize violence, celebrate greed, and tolerate poverty.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 3:37 p.m.

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