One Laptop per Child

From Researching Virtual Initiatives in Education

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is an organisation which aims to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop.

To this end, OLPC has designed hardware, content and software for collaborative, joyful, and self-empowered learning. With access to this type of tool, children are engaged in their own education, and learn, share, and create together. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.

OLPC has designed the XO series of laptops to support this activity.

Over 2 million children and teachers in 42 countries are said to be "learning with XO laptops today" (April 2012). The focus is on primary education.

The main web site is at http://one.laptop.org

Relevance of OLPC to VISCED

This wiki has not (thus far) focussed on primary education, so what is the relevance of OLPC to VISCED? There are several reasons:

1. It is clear from the list of countries supported that even though OLPC has a focus on the poorest children the countries involved are often lower-middle-income and upper-middle-income countries not low-income countries (see http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.eu/index.php/All_countries_by_income)
2. Perhaps the last point is not surprising as in order for OLPC and the children it supports to thrive and learn there must be a basic level of organisation and safety in the country and the capability to deliver electric power and backbone data communications to allow the XO laptops to operate effectively. Sadly, this rules out many low-income countries.
3. As importantly, the interventions a government or NGO puts in place to support learning via XO often include digitisation of textbooks and other activities conducive to fostering ICT-based education at secondary schools also. (These interventions are also likely to foster uptake of OER - see POERUP.)

Thus we expect to see a moderately positive correlation between OLPC countries and countries with virtual (secondary) schools.

Countries

Roughly 2 million children and teachers in Latin America are currently part of an OLPC project, with another 500,000 in Africa and the rest of the world.

The largest national partners include:

1. Uruguay (the first major country in the world to provide every elementary school child with a laptop)
2. Peru (our largest deployment, involving over 8,300 schools)
3. Argentina
4. Mexico
5. Rwanda

Other significant projects have been started in Gaza, Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, and Mongolia.

Every school represent a learning hub, a node in a globally shared resource for learning.

For a map of active countries see http://laptop.org/map and for a map of projects see http://olpcmap.net

Organisation

A substantial team of people and organisations are organising the activities of OLPC - see http://one.laptop.org/about/people (warning: this is a long page - be prepared to scroll !)

More details

The organisation runs a massive wiki - see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/The_OLPC_Wiki - and for updates see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Special:RecentChanges

> VISCED
> POERUP

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