A few months ago, my wife and I signed up for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program whereby for $399, we could pay for one of those new itti-bitty laptops from Mr. Negraponte and his cohorts at MIT to be shipped to a child in a third-world country, PLUS we got one ourselves.  It is referred to as an "XO".  It arrived a week ago, and is a marvel -- about 11x13x2 inches and weighs a couple of pounds... 7" color screen, small keyboard (shades of the 1979 Commodore PET, and the IBM PC Jr.).   Built-in Wireless and an extensive library of "activities" -- the first hint that things are different..... no more traditional computer stuff like "Applications" and "files."  Very rugged.  No documentation with it, and limited/confusing documentation on line.  But then nobody said being a pioneer was easy.

The reason I am calling it out is that it is #1 an Internet Information machine.  i.e. Without any manuals or anything, in about 15 minutes or so, I managed to lumber into GOOGLE which if you click on the Internet Icon, it takes you to directly.  And all the glorious features of GOOGLE are right there!!!  Information, Maps, GMAIL (I set up a new account on it), Links to world, etc.

A few more days of fooling around with it, and I managed to write my first program in the PYTHON programming language, which I had never heard of, but when I read it was named for Monty Python, then it became my favorite.  And yesterday, I managed to save to items from the Journal (we used to call them "Files") and read them back to/from external USB devices.  

Its "activities" are designed for school children -- probably grade school.  Lots of music stuff, even has a built in camera and stereo speakers.  There is no spread-sheet.  There is an elementary word processor which can save files in RTF (Rich Text Format).  It is based on Linux, so the literature says you can download applications -- like one which lets it run as an EBook and read PDF files -- so I assume you can find that bedrock of modern-day computing -- a spread-sheet. 

Who knows where it will lead?  But it occurs to me that this is may be a tremendous opportunity for those of you out there who are involved in elementary education or support thereof, and those of you who are interested in expanding the horizons of information to use this as a tool in your vocation.  I do not know the availability of the machine in the US indivdually or in quantity.  They hope to be able to drop the price to $100 eventually, so just think of being able to outfit a class of 30 students with a laptop for only $3000!  Gifted and Talented HERE WE COME!!!!!

If any of you get one and need some help, or just moral support, in tackling the thing, just let me know.

Randy Cabell

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