[Edu-sig] OLPC (was FYI: PataPata postmortem link)

[Bert Freudenberg]

On Nov 29, 2006, at 16:06 , Tom Hoffman wrote:

> On 11/29/06, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
>> On Nov 29, 2006, at 13:00 , Arthur wrote:
>>
>>> I fear not only that OLPC is turning into a toy,  but a toy for the
>>> wrong follks, folks who have enough toys,  rooms full of them,
>>> lost in
>>> their toys, blinking and whizzing  hynoptic.
>>
>> Would you agree that the software (and not the greenish toy-like
>> hardware) would make all the difference between that little machine
>> being a toy and it being a serious platform for education? Why, then,
>> are so few folks working on actual educational software for it? So
>> far, you can count the specifically educational activities on the
>> OLPC on one hand. Even if you lost most fingers.
>
> I would point out that writing educational software for people who
> don't have computers isn't very useful either, and that once kids have
> computers (on a common, free platform) there's a lot more incentive to
> write educational software for them.

Exactly my reasoning - OLPC is going to be a common, free platform,  
so it should be plenty of incentive. Yet, little is happening.

- Bert -