Another XO review

Olpc

The OLPC arrived home while my daughter was out and just before her 4rth birthday. On seeing it she immediately identified it as a laptop, for children (as hers).

Opening unprompted took 11 seconds inspite of the worried parents trying to prevent bits being pulled off. It has proven to be very rugged. The internal keyboard is functional and sealed – important around kids whose idea of no juice near the keyboard involves ensuring actual contact is (mostly) avoided. Twice the touch pad has been very difficult to use but a wipe with a damp cloth has sorted it ( even although visually it looks clean).

The activities currently available are targeted at at an older group apart from the elementary sound making activity, drawing and websurfing. All these where found pretty quickly and used by the little one. She was frustrated by the lack of activities directed at her age group. She attempted the older ones, being able to see the progression from what she is taught at nursery but they are more abstract and rely on better reading skills than she currently has. Some more symbolic –graphic or audio cued activities may bridge this gap.

A major part of Mollies computer activity is based around use of web learning on cbeebies and other flash sites. These struggle on the olpc, although they are fine on a 700mhz ubuntu laptop using Gnash?. keyboard seems easier for her to use than a large keyboard. She certainly had no problem deducing operation and menu functions. Some reviews slate the resolution of the screen but I molly and her mum had no problem with clarity. some screens off the web needed panning around but that was all. a step away from garish colours is no bad thing. During painting pastel colours seemed to encourage use of more colours by Molly, she normally uses extremes of red blue green black white etc. she also wanted a login ( to make the computer hers)

I tried but could not setup a working telepathy link to the OLPC from other laptops. The connectivity/ mesh networking is an important part of the constructivist education ethos. Providing communication to facilitate and address isolation issues contributing to poverty. Social construction has pupils self educating by working in teams with tasks set and support by teachers. Teachers are supposed to monitor how work is done and provide support for those struggling, re arrange teams to prevent social loafing and reward those teams who perform. Monitoring can be facilitated by use of the log or journal. This provides all the information on activities performed and what the individual did-it needs a team overlay to reduce teacher load processing and comparing the same info many times. But this could be done at a server level.

Internet access is wide open, The laptop will lock on to any open access point and provide service. Good in respect of no setup poor in respect of child protection. However children are unlikely to find adult material interesting unless tutored / groomed into it ( has no relevance until physical maturity). Use of ipchains and server provided filtering would probably be needed in affluent service areas. Provision of content filters would be provided by the market if demand arose, but source availability and development kits for plugins make this a project not out of reach for an interested group to facilitate.

Prosecutions for illegal theft of internet access ( how can you steal something no one has? Where use isn't exclusive or depriving the contractor of their utility unless accessing at the same time?) impact on the open access nature of the OLPC. There is a saving feature in that under 13 children are not fully responsible but their guardians can be .

A visit to the nursery, molly was delighted to show off her computer (gets around need for disclosures, teaching plans and parental permissions ) . The staff were interested in how it could be used for group activities and constructive learning especially when I mentioned the polyphonic activity that is under development. However I could not show this working!! a not unusual opensource problem. The other interest was in how it could reduce their workload, so I introduced them to MOODLE an electronic blackboard system . Again interest until they asked how much they would have to put into the system. They seem to have an impression that computers should just know what is required and they should mould themselves to the system not the system be configured to suit them and certainly not by them. If it became a local authority necessity to use computers 3 out of 4 said they would leave nursery education. No enquiry about child protection while online was made nor their own control over the laptops. Apart from exposing the children to an alternate idea of a desktop for 30mins this was an exercise of limited gains.

The children liked it the adults (except me) did not.