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[Charbax]

Show your XO to the teachers, to the school principal, get into a discussion with them, and let them know they can if they want order 100 or more to implement at their school at [email protected] or to contact the new OLPC America.

Although it's best and cheaper per laptop to order 10.000 or more in a whole city school system.

If you can get a few schools interested, a bunch of teachers excited about the idea, a bunch of school principals thinking about it. Then you have something there to go convince your local politicians, city or village council, pedagogy researchers at your local university to back you up in the experiment, get in contact with your local Linux user support geek community and ask if they would volunteer to provide technical support in case a local school were to buy 100, 1.000 or more using the Give Many programme.

Go show it to your local big company headquarters, try to show it to their CEO, get them to consider donating a whole bunch of them to a third world country by simply going to http://laptopgiving.org - it could be good for their reputation. They can submit a press release in local and national newspapers saying how many laptops they have donated to improve childrens education in third world countries.

[Lori]

I don't think a school system is going to spend that much money on something with a 30 day warranty and unknown support.  Just came from a PTA meeting and my local public school is rigid about who touches their equipment, gotta be a school employee.  Also, they don't allow internet access or cellphones during school hours so I don't know how they'd like the mesh.  The printing issue might be a problem because they like paper.

Instead of talking to principals you might want to talk to the school's tech people.  You also might want to be able to talk about what the program looked like 6 months after the OLPC people left.

[sracer]

I don't think a school system is going to spend that much money on something with a 30 day warranty and unknown support.  Just came from a PTA meeting and my local public school is rigid about who touches their equipment, gotta be a school employee.  Also, they don't allow internet access or cellphones during school hours so I don't know how they'd like the mesh.  The printing issue might be a problem because they like paper.

Instead of talking to principals you might want to talk to the school's tech people. 

In my experience, as it currently is, the XO is going to be a difficult sell to local school districts.  Out of the box it is specialized hardware in the same vein as Dreamwriters.  Proprietary UI, proprietary apps, proprietary way of interracting with it.

Yep, I said proprietary.  Sure, the software itself may be "open source", but there is nothing about the XO that school administrators, school tech support staff, parents, teachers, or students are familiar with or can relate to.  Common knowledge about computers is not transferable to the XO.  It is THAT different. 

It might as well be alien technology from another planet.  Some will point out to children in other countries who have no problem picking them up and using them.  The problem with that comparison is that those children have nothing else to compare it to.  One would be hard-pressed to find children in the US who have never had interaction with a computer of some kind.  In THAT context, the XO appears odd and out of place.

I'm waiting for a more traditional UI to be made available for the XO that supports the current suite of activities before making any presentations to local school boards.

[Charbax]

Operating System UI is learnt by a child in about 2 minutes and a half. It really doesn't matter much if the software is launched clicking on icons at the bottom of the screen or if they are launched by clicking on Start - Programs - Program Folder and Correct software icon.

The Sugar OS is the most perfect ever made in my opinion. It is so geniusly conveived and all computers will be like that in a few years. The Interfaces need to be just as they would be on a micro-oven, a refrigirator or a cell phone. Interfaces need to become like Consumer Electronics.

Click on the icon to launch - end of story.

Your theories about "learning to use the OS" is so wrong. That's not what children do with a computer. They learn to be creative on the computer, to write text, to read websites, to compose music, take pictures, upload stuff. All these things have got nothing to do with "learning to use an OS".

[Charbax]

I don't think a school system is going to spend that much money

Hum hum, the OLPC XO laptop costs about 1/50th of the average child yearly educational budget.

Think of that for a second. Every child could get 50 laptops per year under the current educational budget.

The child just needs to take 2 days off of school to afford a laptop.

OLPC does NOT cost much money for US or EU schools.

[Lori]

You're correct, in theory American schools can easily afford XOs for everybody.  If the XO was marketed as an NCLB (no child left behind) solution it might have traction.  Also, if it increased attendance (ie the child had to bring it in once in a while to keep it active) the school would benefit because they get funded per child.  However, there are issues for the school system in addition to the cost of the unit and rote drill for high-stakes testing in not in OLPC's mission.

Here I'm talking about public schools.  There's thousands of private schools/homeschoolers that might be a better fit.

Most parents in America could afford to buy the XO on their own if they saw the advantage of it.  I'm talking about people who can afford WII, iPods, DisneyWorld, etc.  If it were easy to purchase they might buy one just to keep junior off the 'real' computer.  Even the poorer people could get their hands on $200 if they saw the purpose.

in America laptop learning is not very widespread among very young children (XO's target).  Right now we're worried about obesity among young children so OLPC would have to address that also.

[Charbax]

I plan to go into teacher-parents meetings and try to convince a majority of the parents in each class to buy it themselves. This way they don't have to wait for the government, for the school, for the regional government, city council to find funds and to pay for it.

Also I plan to talk with local banks and stuff like that to have them offer a 12 month with 12 x $20 payments or something like that, for the parent who cannot afford or who doesn't want to pay for the laptop all at once.

So you simply need one teacher who is enthusiastic, one school principal who thinks it's a good idea and a majority of parents at a teacher-parents meeting to vote for it, and you've got 25 or so orders you can forward to [email protected] - Then you just need 3 more classes to go, eigther in the same school or in other schools in the region, and you would have enough to ask OLPC to do a 100 laptop shipment.

Of course it's preferable to get the big decision makers in the country, in the region, in the city to take the decision to buy 10.000 or more of the laptops, that also brings down the cost per laptop. But I would say every OLPC fan should evangelize the laptop as much as they can, and if it turns out your local school buys 100 of them thanks to you, then you can be proud to have helped to make that happen. And who knows, that might trigger other schools in your region to do the same shortly after and the total number could be in the thousands and tens of thousands.

The question is, will teachers be enthusiastic to use it in elementary schools. Perhaps some of the teachers have a lot to worry about in their daily job already, and perhaps it could be hard to get them immediately enthusiastic about launching a pilot project in their specific school. And you need to get local Linux volunteer community in contact with the school to provide volunteer support, coordinate eventually a little bit of WiFi installations at the School, though probably most schools in USA and Europe already have WiFi.

[Brian Basgen]

Yep, I said proprietary.  Sure, the software itself may be "open source", but there is nothing about the XO that school administrators, school tech support staff, parents, teachers, or students are familiar with or can relate to.  Common knowledge about computers is not transferable to the XO.  It is THAT different. 

 It is true that most schools have understaffed IT departments, it is also true that when it comes to the latest and greatest, they may be a version or two behind. The notion, however, that when new technology comes along it is apriori unworkable is about as contrary a conception to IT that I can imagine.

 Alien technology? I suppose we should put all of our 6 year olds into NASA for being able to figure it out in about 3 minutes flat, wouldn't you say? ;p I'm sorry the XO has challenged you so far outside your comfort zone, but I feel confident that young children won't have similar issues. It would be quite the self-fulfilling cycle, wouldn't it, if we *had* to teach children exactly what we know, because that is the only "proper" way to learn?

[Brian Basgen]

Charbax,

 I'm right there with you. There is a tremendous amount of opportunity for the XO.

 I'm working on similar efforts. The main question is how best to sell them, etc. What ideas do you have? Also, what about presentation ideas?

[KayTi]

My 6 and 4 year olds have no trouble with the XO's interface.

Here is my explanation as a learning designer and observer of small children:

To kids, everything has an interface. They need to figure out how to interact with each thing they come in contact with. My son plays video games at home and friend's houses that are different. He plays different consoles. The first time he plays a new console, it takes him a few minutes. But he is motivated to learn the interface because he wants to play the games.

He is similarly motivated to figure out how much strength and force is needed to open the refrigerator door so he can get a snack. The strength and force he needs to apply to that door differs from what he needs to apply to the sliding back door to get outside to play. Neither of these challenges were particularly large ones for him, once he became tall enough to reach the handles.

While it's true my kids use a (windows-based) computer often, they have no trouble moving from the windows computer's interface to the XOs. They don't think of it as different or the same, I hypothesize. They just do certain things on the XO to make activities come up and get involved in something, and do other things on the windows PC to make applications run and get involved in something. They also have no trouble moving between other interfaces like the touch-screen displays at the museum and those handy gift registry print-out stations located at the guest services counters of stores we frequent. (Ah, Miss Beverly, we have printed your bridal registry on more than one occasion yet we never manage to buy you a gift!)

I agree that the XO's interface will seem very foreign to many school administrators, however my limited exposure to a few in my local area has turned up more linux fans than not. The educational content part of the XO is going to be the challenge. I'm starting to think about this side of the problem, and want to start looking at the NCLB standards and my own state educational standards and see what kinds of learning exercises I can put together with currently available activities like Speak, Memorize, and Jigsaw Puzzle. Anyone care to join me?

Oh - and Brian and Charbox, I'm also interested in working on "sales-type" presentation materials. Perhaps we can collaborate?

[Mike Lee]

Just catching up to the good discussion here.

I, too, attempted some probes into the local schools back in October and November. I presented at a Washington, D.C. elementary school with an administartion official in attendance and communicated to the Montgomery County (Maryland) PTA listserve with their permission. Despite followups, noting came of it. I had hoped to at least get a second demo at D.C. school headquarters or to encounter some parents who might have needed help thinking through a group purchase through G1G1.

Thinking back to experiences I had working with, and volunteering for, Baltimore City Schools when I lived and worked there, I'm not surprised that Nicholas has apparently hired a political operative to work top down in the states. There are multiple tiers of IT management that call the shots on risk-averse 18-month cycles of technology procurement. Those folks will need a pretty robust case made to them on integration issues and total cost of ownership.

Aside from the monolithic school systems, comments made here, and that I've heard in conversation, suggest that there's much opportunity in the home via home schoolers and in the transition between in learning centers or self-organized clubs. What is the market opportunity in private schools? And there are a raft of non-profits that could step up after perhaps having some more contact from evangelists.

I'm planning to reconnect with an old boss of mine for whom I worked as the technology director of a start-up that partnered with labor unions (municipal workers of all kinds) and local government to effect a small payroll deduction that would fund the delivery of a PC and internet connection to their homes. The folks who joined the program didn't even have to have credit. I developed the web site and managed some of the field techs, but the memory that persists the most were the bi-weekly computer classes I gave to city workers to orient them to their computers. There was a craving for access to technology and learning in those classes that I am sure persists today. The start-up had a workable model that managed to get 2000 PCs deployed, but ultimately was underfunded. The investors pulled out before the dotcom bust.

As a software and hardware platform, I'm enchanted most by the OLPC's collaboration and mobility aspirations, which due to the immature software, lack of documentation and the hue and cry from the G1G1 delivery problems has not even begun to shine. In addition to any case-making and community building I can do, I want to pilot a mobile mesh-enabled field trip for a small group of children and parents to a museum or nature center. And it's timely that I'll be able to attend an NSF-sponsored workshop on Children's Mobile next month to soak in the latest thought leadership in this domain. I'm hoping this project will yield a success story or at least be another data point that further demonstrates the real potential of OLPC.

~

[Charbax]

The main question is how best to sell them, etc. What ideas do you have?

As far as I understand from the Give Many programme, you could start with 4 classes or 1 school and order a minimum of 100 laptops for $300 each.

So basically, the way I see it, the laptop isn't replacing the teacher.

1. It's just a tool which can be used for learning for example such a thing as searching for information on the Internet.

2. The students learn about computers, the Internet and technology. So at the minimum, investing in OLPC in the school provide the children an awesome opportunity to learn about technology.

3. Then from there the opportunities really are infinite. So many more software and digital curriculum strategies are possible. It's then just a matter of teachers sharing with each other in the school and with other teachers globally, sharing good advice on how to use the laptop positively to supplement the existing curriculum and how to even improve the curriculum. So then it's just a question of education researchers providing the good tips and advice to the teachers. It's a question of the government providing all the necessary customized digitized content for learning most and best.

4. Parents want the best for their children and probably want their children to be part of pilot projects as much as possible. Cause as far as I guess, most parents aren't always satisfied with the educationnal system that their children are in.

5. I'll post on http://olpc.tv videos of how things will go with my grassroots campaign to get the laptops into all my local schools and how to get OLPC at the top priority of the aid that my country gives to developping countries.

[KayTi]

I think private schools are a good angle. My son attends one and I plan to present to the Computer teacher/chief technologist and the Head of School sometime in the near future (as soon as I get a bunch of materials together, LOL)

Meanwhile, I've been looking into my state's standards (IL) - and found some interesting stuff. I didn't realize (but am relieved to learn) that there are national technology literacy standards - here's a link to the PreK-2nd grade ones:

http://cnets.iste.org/students/s_profile-k2.html

I am going to develop some activities that knock out most or all of these items with the base stuff that's available on the XO and/or easily downloadable from the wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities page.

I am also looking at math standards (reasoning: our babysitter is a 5th grade math teacher and recent college grad who is willing to spend some time with me making sure I understand what the standards are doing, and helping me develop some activities focused toward the younger set - Grades 1-2 is my target, mainly because I have a 1st grader. )

[kirish43]

Let's not encourage any one to order until there is inventory to ship. The G1G1 donors are now told to wait until the end of March. As soon as inventory become available I am all for promoting them .

[KayTi]

In my experience, sales and promotional cycles are looooonnnnngggg. My conversations next week may possibly lead to some type of purchase for School Year 2008-2009, or not. Certainly it wouldn't translate into an instant order. Schools don't move that fast.

So, don't hold off talking about the laptops if you find yourself interested in them. Focus on the features of the laptops, the educational mission, the ability of older students to create content for younger ones, for younger ones to explore.