[Edu-sig] OLPC G1G1 sales start today

Paul D. Fernhout pdfernhout at kurtz-fernhout.com
Tue Nov 13 00:48:33 CET 2007


Paul D. Fernhout wrote:
> For a more typical home user, especially one who does not already know and
> like GNU/Linux, I'm not sure if it would meet expectations in the developing
> world as other than either as special purpose device (like used as an ebook
> reader or robot controller) or alternatively, for a family who buys several,
> as a family activity to use some of the built in "connectivist" software
> (either what is there now or what might be speculatively available in the
> future). 

That should have read "in the developed world", meaning like the USA. And I
really should not be using "developed" / "developing" as they are loaded
terms (even though the OLPC project uses them too), since there is a lot the
USA can learn from other countries, including poor ones, some of whom rank
higher in overall happiness in various surveys -- here's a different one:
  http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/

On using Java/Jython and the OLPC:
  "Pepper on the OLPC"
   http://www.pepper.com/linux/olpc.html
"A technology preview of a special version of the Pepper environment is now
available for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop. This version of
Pepper for OLPC runs on the XO laptop and replaces the standard Sugar
environment while retaining the XO's Fedora-based Linux distribution. ...
The Pepper environment is written primarily in Java, though it includes open
source components like Mozilla and Java that are written in C or C++. The
Pepper application framework supports Java, C, C++, XUL, HTML, etc. We're
also working on adding Python support soon. ... We'll be making the source
code for the Pepper for OLPC environment available soon. We're planning to
release it under an LGPL license. We'll also be sponsoring an open source
community to maintain the Pepper for OLPC environment."

Using Pepper (if it is indeed released under the LGPL as announced above),
which is an environment built in Java and including JVM 1.5, I hope I can
run Jython on the OLPC. I'll have to try it and see. Maybe the Pepper people
do not know about Jython? Of course, software written there in Jython is not
going to run on the regular OLPC environment (which is CPython+pyGTK).

An informative pro-OLPC post at Slashdot:
  "Worth Careful consideration"
  http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=357665&cid=21325111
An excerpt: "While you can certainly waste time and goof off on the web,
there is also a wealth of instructional material, learning material, free
encyclopedias, and help of all kinds to be had on message boards. Children
could learn, for example, methods of improving local sanitation,
agricultural techniques, and health information which could end up saving
the developed world millions or billions of dollars in humanitarian aid.
They could also learn other languages which could open up entire worlds to
them. Even if they didn't have the internet, they could learn how to
program, how to compute, make art, photographs, drawings, and a whole bunch
of other stuff with it. Not to mention the fun factor. It's not an
educational panacea but it WILL change the world. "

And as another slashdot poster says, you can't buy that many paper textbooks
for $200, especially compared to what you can cram into 1GB of Flash (or
even more if you get the files from local servers and delete old ones). And
paper books have their own problems in areas of high humidity (mold, chewed
by rodents, fade in the sun, etc.). I think a lot of the economics that
governments are considering for deploying OLPC have more to do with
replacing plain old paper textbooks with a single laptop than any of the
issues of connectivity or simulation or learning to program which are more
the sorts of things we think about for computers in, say, the USA or Europe,
where we pretty much take purchasing textbooks and access to local libraries
of tens of thousands of printed books for granted. Still, even for USA
schools, OLPCs may make sense if they save money on textbooks. So, USA
school districts could save money of textbooks (if they were free, as in here:)
   "Global Text Project – Wiki Textbooks"
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/05/230201
   http://globaltext.org/
(or even just at direct author royalty cost) and kids get Python and
educational simulations thrown in as a bonus. Plus, they get a lighter load
and less back pain.
  "Heavy backpacks lead to early strain and pain for schoolkids"
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2001/fyi/teachers.ednews/02/13/backpack.pain.ap/

Anyway, as an ebook reader alone the OLPC might be worth the US$425 cost,
which is only a $100 more than what a Sony Reader costs with an extra
waterproof cover, and that amount is less than the more flexible (but
heavier) iRex Iliad. See:
  http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5664
I think key to happiness with the OLPC in the USA is reduced expectations.
Consider that for $425, you get an OLPC ebook reader than runs Python, and
then some kid somewhere else with limited access to books gets one too. I'll
be curious to compare them side-by-side with an ebook reader. Maybe if that
eight year old reviewer was asked -- would you rather carry a three pound
OLPC XO-1 back and forth to activities or two or three times as much weight
in textbooks in your backpack, they might have gone for the OLPC.

--Paul Fernhout



More information about the Edu-sig mailing list