Posted on April 15, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

Today is April 15, 2008, and that means there are two important deadlines in your life:

olpc irs

First, today is your last chance to Be Nichoals Negroponte for a Day on the OLPC News Forum. If you get creative enough, and your fellow Forum members vote you a winner, you could share $50 in prizes from XOexplosion.

Second, if your subject to taxation by the Internal Revenue Service, and participated in G1G1, today is the last day to fret over taking the OLPC tax deduction.

Theoretically, you can claim $200 of your Give One Get One XO laptop as a donation to charity, but if you activate the T-Mobile subscription, maybe not. Of course, if you sold your T-Mobile subscription, you'd come out ahead anyway.

Personally, I took the deductions and gave away the T-Mobile subscriptions as a G2G2. What did you do?

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Posted on April 04, 2008 by Edward Cherlin in Countries: USA

Wayan Vota made a good point today in OLPC America Needed in Birmingham Pilot and Illinois Debate. I had almost forgotten about OLPC America.

I'm inclined to doubt that OLPC America exists, on the evidence I have seen. Of the 21,300 hits on Google for it, the top item is my Wiki entry quoting the announcement. Nobody at OLPC has added anything to it, not even the names of the director and chairman whose existence was announced. I would be happy to be proved wrong, of course.

olpc America

OLPC USA

Even if OLPC America exists, it is doing precisely nothing. So why don't we start our own OLPC USA and get things moving?

My father had to organize 50-state licensing for his company, for insurance policies, so I have some idea of what's needed. Getting XOs into 50 state education systems, or into numerous local systems while we work on the states, is a bit more complicated.

We have to track the legislatures, the administrations, and the education system state by state. We also need a way to explain the XO properly to the prospects. Kids get it immediately, but parents, teachers, administrators, politicians, and other stakeholders who may have forgotten how it was when they were children will need our help to rediscover discovery. Then we have to get their attention.

Its up to us

So my question to you is, rather than wait for Somebody Else to do it, are you willing to take some time to assure your children's future? Wait, what am I saying? What else do parents do? Let's try that again.

Are you willing to work to get XOs into schools instead of something else you are currently doing, on the theory that it will have a bigger effect on your children's future? Don't answer right away unless you have already showed some children an XO, and then asked them how XOs in school would affect their lives.

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Posted on April 04, 2008 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership, Countries: USA

Where is OLPC America? The organization and its leadership are conspicuously silent since Nicholas Negroponte's announcement.

In this void, communities across the United States are charging ahead with low-cost laptop programs. They are making changes at the city and state level to introduce the XO laptop into school systems, often without a full understanding of the costs or benefits of an OLPC-empower learning shift.

olpc Birmingham

Birmingham Starts 1,000 laptop Pilot

Congratulations to Mayor Larry Langford and the children of Birmingham, Alabama! They'll be participating in the first large-scale One Laptop Per Child program in America. Yesterday the Birmingham Board of Education accepted 1,000 XO laptop computers for a pilot program at Glen Iris and possibly one other elementary school. The Birmingham News announced that:

The first 1,000 computers, called XO laptops, are part of an initiative by Mayor Larry Langford and the Birmingham City Council to put laptop computers in the hands of first- through eighth-graders in the city school system.
Yet before anyone reaches for the champagne, remember this is a pilot program, the board has not accepted all 15,000 low-cost laptops that the city agreed to buy from OLPC. In addition, it will be a crash-pilot, from April 15 to September, that will need to show results by August, when the other 14,000 XO's are secluded to arrive from Quanta.

Then there's the cost. The Birmingham Weekly reports that:

The school system has estimated that setting up Glen Iris Elementary for the pilot program would cost as much as $30,000. Board member Phyllis Wyne questioned whether the $500,000 promised to the school system by the city would be enough to wire all 31 schools for the program.

The mayor’s office had proposed giving the computers to all students in the Birmingham schools, but Councilor Royal pointed out Thursday night that the funding is not enough to pay for that many computers. The city has agreed to buy 15,000 XO laptops from OLPC for $3,000,000. There are approximately 28,000 students enrolled in Birmingham schools - 13,000 more students than computers.

OLPC America would do well to give the Birmingham BoE some guidance and reassurance as to the costs of a school's infrastructure, or a full rollout to multiple schools. Better yet, OLPC America could work with the BoE to make sure its pilot assessment metrics can accurately measure impact in such a short time frame.

olpc Birmingham
Future Illinois learning

Illinois Low Cost Laptop Act

Now imagine a Birmingham program on a state-wide level. That's the dream of Illinois Lt. Governor Pat Quinn and his Low Cost Laptop Act:

The Children's Low-Cost Laptop Act (HB 5000)... would establish a statewide program to provide elementary school students in up to 300 schools with low-cost laptop computers for academic use. All elementary schools and school districts in Illinois would have the opportunity to submit an application for laptop funding.

"Laptops are the textbooks of tomorrow, and no Illinois child should be left on the wrong side of the digital divide," Quinn said.

OLPC News contributor and OLPC Volunteer Ed Cherlin analyzed the finer points of the Act, and his results may surprise you:
As usual, the Devil is in the details. This [bill] says nothing about how to choose the laptops. Will the authorities decide to buy as much hardware as they can for $400 per unit? Or will they understand that the XO hardware and software are designed for the mission?

Furthermore the bill explicitly provides incorrect criteria for evaluating the project. The report must include the project's effect on:

  1. academic progress of students who are participating in the pilot project, as measured by performance on assessment instruments;
  2. student progress in schools or classrooms participating in the pilot project as compared with student progress in schools or classrooms not participating;
  3. student performance on assessment instruments required by the State Board;
Items 1 and 3 specify the use of standard tests for evaluating the program. If this bill becomes law, the education authorities will be prohibited from evaluating the children's interest in learning, whatever they learn outside the curriculum, or their progress in collaboration, independent learning, discovery, creativity, or problem-solving.

Several laptop programs in the US have been shut down because they did not evaluate any of these things, and produced no significant gains in standard test scores.

Ed concludes that the authors of the bill have little idea what One Laptop Per Child is about or its true promise for education. That there is a real need to educate political leaders on the full requirements and metrics of technology-empowered learning.

olpc Birmingham
A future OLPC America leader?

The need for OLPC America

Wasn't this the very role for OLPC America? To combine experts in education and legislative maneuvering that can show how education using the XO is supposed to work, teach a bit of it to the legislature and the public, and then make sure that that understanding informs any bill on the subject.

I will give OLPC Chicago great credit in getting the ball moving, and mad props to Mayor Larry Langford in making OLPC Birmingham happen.

But wouldn't both be helped by an active and visible OLPC America?

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Posted on March 12, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

Since OLPC started Give One Get One, a few enterprising individuals in the OLPC News G1G1 Forum have been running nightly scripts that check each XO order number on their tracking page, to separate shipping fact from fiction.

On Monday, Dr. Toast posted his tracking number results for those that are still waiting:
A few quick observations based on these stats: right now there are about 45,000 laptops that have shipped, and about 24,000 that have not. The laptops have been going out at a trickle for the last several weeks, although there was a big spike of over 5,000 laptops that went out on March 3 (mine was in that batch).
Thanks to Goney3, we now have a visual of the OLPC shipping activity:
If you are one of the 24,000 who is still waiting for OLPC to Give One Got Done and have a spreadsheet skill, please download Dr. Toast's stats and do a deeper analysis on the trends you see with XO laptop shipping.

You'll have a few thousand friends if you do.

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Posted on March 11, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

xo is god
Success for OLPC LC-DC
Can you believe that just three months ago, on December 11, we had the first Give One Get One laptop delivery for One Laptop Per Child? Now that its 90 days later, I have a question to ask about G1G1:
Is OLPC Give Gone Got Done yet?
Now I am not talking about RMA's or lost-in-transit orders, but actual G1G1 donors who ordered by December 31, who are still waiting for their initial XO laptop delivery. Of special interest would be any Day One Donors who are still sans XO.

In January, OLPC sent an email to the G1G0 folks, tell them:
Our production schedule is still on track and we expect to deliver your laptop by the middle part to end of March. Your donation is in queue and ready for shipment as soon as we receive additional laptops.
And in the February 24th Community News, we heard that:
Production: The final batch of laptops for the G1G1 program are finishing up in production and making their way to Chicago. They will start shipping out to consumers as early as Monday. We expect to ship them all before the end of March.
So as Phred asks in the OLPC News Forum:Has anyone gotten an XO recently?

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Posted on March 07, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Countries: USA

boston peeps
Massachusetts mesh networking
Boston area OLPC supporters, brave the rain and come out to the OLPC News Boston Meetup this Saturday at the Kendal Square Cosi in Cambridge!

A whole crew of One Laptop Per Child participants, including the amazing Aunti Mame of the Mass XO User Group and I, your humble OLPC News editor, will be mesh networking on OLPC's progress, impact, and activities.

We can even have a OLPC CEO Contest where we nominate who we think should be the next leader XO laptop dissemination. My vote? I'll reveal it at:

OLPC News Boston Meetup Saturday, March 8 at 5pm Kendal Square Cosi 290 Main St, Cambridge (map)

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Posted on February 06, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Countries: USA

olpc nyc
Praying for OLPC in NYC
One Laptop Per Child may have pilot projects in many schools worldwide, but the newest program has my rapt attention. Teaching Matters, an educational non-profit, is implementing a OLPC pilot in the Kappa VI school in New York City with a refreshing twist.

Their OLPC in NYC project blog states they have two main goals:
  1. Lowering Total Cost of Ownership:Teaching Matters wants to decrease the current $1,300 per-laptop cost of purchase and comprehensive managed support.

  2. Improving Instruction:Teaching Matters wants to use technology to address the problems of new teachers lacking the knowledge and experience needed to effectively teach writing, and keep middle school students, especially boys, from demonstrating significant declines in writing performance and motivation
This is the first OLPC pilot that I know of where the implementing organization is looking at Total Cost of Ownership, teacher adoption, and learning outcomes - the trifecta of impact that will really change educator opinions on One Laptop Per Child - through rigorous objective measurements of its work.

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Posted on January 18, 2008 by Wayan Vota in People: Leadership, Countries: USA

mike ford
The same Mike Ford?
Just who is the new executive director of OLPC America? That is the question I ask myself as I look for references to "Mike Ford" + OLPC.

The Birmingham News says that Nicholas Negroponte appointed Mike Ford to lead One Laptop Per Child's foray into USA distribution of XO laptops to school systems (no individual sales, contrary to reports). And the US News elaborates on OLPC America's priorities:
:But only those states showing the most need will have first dibs on the $200 computers. "We want to be efficient and fair," says Mike Ford, executive director of the new One Laptop Per Child branch in Washington, D.C.
But the only other reference to Mike Ford and OLPC is this participant list from a La Organización Juventud Ecuatoriana learning workshop, which lists Mike as from Pittsburgh, not DC.

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Posted on January 16, 2008 by Jon Camfield in Commentary: Academia, Use Cases: Education, Countries: USA

Mark Warschauer's latest book, Laptops and Literacy
Being the geek that I am, I got a copy of Mark Warschauer's latest book, Laptops and Literacy, having been a huge fan of his insightful commentary on the "digital divide" in Technology and Social Inclusion.

You might remember Mark from his New York Times article which he clarified here at OLPCNews, as well as his recent posting of a case study-like look at the Intel Classmate at the Newport Heights Elementary in Newport Beach, California.

Laptops and Literacy Overview

Laptops and Literacy is a different kind of book. Where Technology and Social Inclusion was more of a framework or theoretical book, L&L focuses on case studies of one-to-one laptop studies in the United States, focusing on some school-based programs in California and the statewide initiative in Maine which has often been help up by the OLPC Foundation as a perfect example of the power of the one laptop per child model.

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Posted on January 10, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Commentary: OLPC News, Countries: USA

Are you in International Development and know what "ICT4D" means? Or are you just a crazy geek, in love with the XO laptop and wondering how it will really work in the developing world?


How will OLPC impact her?
Either way, if you are in Washington DC, clear your calendar on Tuesday evening for the January Meetup of ICT for International Development, co-hosted by Center for Global Development, which will have a very interesting focus:
Opportunities & Challenges of OLPC What are the opportunities and challenges for its approach and vision? Can the project be faithful to its five core principles of child ownership; low ages; saturation; connection; and free and open source?
The panel discussion will feature four OLPC experts leading us through a lively discussion on everyone's favorite low-cost laptop:
  • Jonathan Blocksom (Blog) is an educational software developer and author of the kids 3D modeling program GollyGee Blocks. He has been working on software for the XO since May 2007.
  • Mike Lee (Blog | OLPC Photos) is the organizer of the OLPC Learning Club DC. You can find him mobile blogging frequently at HipTop Nation. He is also the sponsorship liaison for four years to the MIT Media Lab for a large non-profit member organization based in D.C.
  • Justin Thorp (Blog) is a Web strategist/developer for the government contractor CACI and currently supports the Library of Congress. He has worked on content initiatives with OLPC.
  • Wayan Vota (Bio) is Director of Mercy Corps' MicroMentor by day and publisher of the widely-ready OLPC News site by night.
We'll begin at 6:00pm with snacks and conversation and then start the program at 6:30pm. Also, if you have an XO laptop yourself, do bring it. We'll be mesh networking before and after the event.

Opportunities & Challenges of OLPC Center for Global Development 1776 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Third Floor Washington , DC 20036 (map)

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Posted on January 09, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Countries: USA

olpc Barney
Barney wants USA $100 laptop sales
While we await Nicholas Negroponte's Industry Insider address, he apparently told Dan Nystedt of the IDG News Service a pre-speech shocker: OLPC is going to launch in America through US state governments, after ignoring them for the past year or so:
OLPC America already has a director and a chairman, and will likely be based in Washington D.C., said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of OLPC, in an interview.

"The whole thing is merging right now. It will be state-centric. We're trying to do it through the 50 state governments," he said.
Now why would Negroponte suddenly change course form his previous dismissals of an OLPC USA? Before he said he wouldn't pursue One Laptop Per American Child in the near term because of the difference in need. The American government has the money to afford One Mac Book Per Child while developing country governments do not.

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Posted on January 07, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

Reading today's press release from OLPC, I was amazed by the success of the G1G1 program:
In total, the campaign raised $35 million and more than 100,000 XO laptops are already in the process of being distributed to children in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mongolia and Rwanda.
But in reading Nicholas Negroponte's interview with Forbes magazine, I didn't hear a sense of accomplishment from Negroponte himself:
xo is god
Success for OLPC LC-DC
What is the final tally of Give One Get One? 162,000, for $35 million.

Is that more than you expected? It is and it isn't. It's stunning to do that. On the other hand it doesn't quite create an economic model which could run the whole thing. If we had done a million units with G1G1 you could then maybe say the $100 laptop becomes a zero dollar laptop. So it didn't do that well in terms of the economic model to go forward.
On my hands I come up with a whole different tally. On the positive, I see a whole nation now seeded with future OLPC supporters.

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Posted on January 07, 2008 by Guest Writer in Sales Talk: G1G1, Hardware: Peripherals, Countries: USA

charles county OLPC
XO laptop in the spotlight
My name is Mark Czajka, and I'm president of the Charles County Technology Council. Being part of this all volunteer non-profit organization is very rewarding, and we want to use the XO to give back to our local community. Three of our Board Members have ordered one because we have been very moved by the Give One Get One program.

By educating kids and adults here in Southern Maryland, we hope to bring more exposure to this cause. We also feel that the technology built into this laptop could be utilized (some day) in our area, to support kids that cannot afford computers as well as help us reach “the last mile” in rural areas that do not have broadband Internet access. We can all learn a lot from the mesh networking capabilities built into the XO.

As part of our education efforts, we would like to use the XO with an LCD Projector. I haven't been able to find any information on this topic. I would assume some hardware would be required, as well as some drivers on the XO. If anyone has any information about this, please post it in the OLPC News XO Accessories Forum. In the mean time, we will use an XO emulator on a Windows laptop.

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Posted on December 26, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

It is the day after Christmas, and all through the land, Give One Get One donors are yet still binary: with xo laptops or without.

As this discrepancy becomes more acute - the lucky half exploring a national XO Chat session and the rest watching in jealous agony - the OLPC Learning Club has a message for those coveting thy neighbour's Linux laptop:
Yes, its time to take a Biblical approach and find your inner patience. And if you wear through that you can always live vicariously (or just bitch) on the OLPC News Forum.

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Posted on December 19, 2007 by Guest Writer in Countries: USA, Use Cases: User Groups

seattle user group
A future Sea/Tac XO cluster
Some of us here in Seattle just couldn't wait for our OLPC laptops to arrive. Immediately after November 12th we decided to form an XO user group. We'd like OLPCNews readers to know that there's a Seattle area XO user group being formed. SeaXO. (Expect great T-Shirts, btw) Even beyond Seattle, we hope to attract people from all over the Puget Sound region.

Since we're just starting out, I'll tell you a bit about the organizers. Essentially, there are five of us that are very good friends who actually first got together 23 years to do something pretty much like this: to found a user group. (Wayne, Chris, Bill, Glenn and myself: Tim)

The group quickly became a big success and quite naturally over time we all moved on many years ago to other things. But, the friendships remain, as well as the love of exciting technology and the five of us still stay in close touch. So, when the OLPC project came along we were all enthralled with the goals and the technology of the XO.

Some of us, and myself in particular had been watching the development since the very beginning. When the G1G1 program came up, that was all the encouragement we each needed to grab one. And, we figured that with our experiences in getting these things going we thought we might be able to help the XO project by jumping in to nudge along the formation of a Seattle area group.

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Posted on December 16, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1, Hardware: Peripherals, Countries: USA

We may all be hoping for a Green Christmas, but by the looks of the G1G1 shipping lottery, not everyone will have an XO laptop under their tree by December 25. Before you curse OLPC, remember that they are focused on children in the developing world. You should be focused on being a good American consumer, and I'm here to help. I've just complied the OLPC News Christmas List for XO Laptop Lovers on Amazon.com:Nicholas Negroponte
  • Being Digital - Negroponte's breakthrough work on the history and future of technology
  • OLPC on 60 Minutes - a must-have for every OLPC-loving geek if only to see Craig Barrett squirm.
  • I ♥ Nicholas Negroponte - you know I will be wearing this with pride come summer. (my favorite!)
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Posted on December 15, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Countries: Canada, Sales Talk: G1G1, Countries: USA

g1g1 xo laptop shipment
My big ass sign of hope
As editor of OLPC News, you would think I have some secret reservoir of Give One Get One shipping knowledge, or have my XO laptop already. If only!

What I do know, I learn from your scattered comments on OLPC News and the XO Shipping Forum. Here's a distillation of what I've learned so far:
  • XO's are coming from Brightstar's distribution center in Libertyville Il.
  • There isn't any order/shipment relationship. Week 2 people are getting laptops already
  • They are using FedEx Ground to ship laptops nationwide
  • You can call FedEx Ground to see if your laptop is on its way
  • If it is, I suggest being ready with a big-ass sign
  • And then be quick to get your XO lest it become G1G0.
Good luck everyone. May we, and the world's children, win the XO Lotto.

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Posted on December 15, 2007 by Wayan Vota in