Is it still Christmas? We participated in the One Laptop Per Child “Give One Get One” program in November. So basically we bought a new XO Laptop for a child in a developing country and paid for an extra one for us–intending to give it to Hope for christmas. The little box finally showed up on our front porch on Saturday.
First impression: that thing is little! I guess it makes all kinds of sense to build a kid laptop in kid size, but I just wasn’t expecting it. It uses a new operating system called ‘Sugar,’ which takes some getting used to. We’ve been figuring out the different applications and programs, and how to do some cool things.
I am happy and impressed with the packaging–or lack thereof. Just a little cardboard box with two pieces of protective cardboard inside. They didn’t even kill a bunch of trees printing a user manual. Just one sheet with a thank you letter from creator Nicholas Negraponte letting you know the manual is online at the XO wiki.
It’s a very snazzy little machine. And it would be 100 times better if there were other kids around here who have one. (If you live in the Sioux Falls area and know another XO owner–please let me know so we could get our kids together to connect on the XO’s built in ‘mesh’ network.) The machines are all about collaborative learning. Very cool stuff.
Nice work, Nicholas. Now let’s get these things into American grade schools too.
bartblog. 
Jennifer
March 15, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I saw a pice on TV about these. It’s an interesting program. How much did it cost?
joebart
March 16, 2008 at 2:50 pm
The computers cost $200. The “give one get one” program was only around for a couple of months though. You can give one to child in a developing country at http://laptop.org.