I think it is appropriate that Brian Childs, our BGSU IDEAL liaison in Kenya, Africa, actually IM'd me this story just a few minutes ago. I have written about the $100 Laptop program several times on this blog regarding the affect it could have on the progress of worldwide education. We are currently assessing the technological capabilities in Kenya and TZ for future delivery of online courses in Africa and the $100 laptop program might be a huge part of the puzzle. Contrary to the name of the laptop, it is not cheap in the sense of quality. The $100 laptops actually use state of the art technology for durability, wi-fi, energy efficiency, and more.
"Five years after the concept was first proposed, the so-called $100 laptop is poised to go into mass production. Hardware suppliers have been given the green light to ramp-up production of all of the components needed to build millions of the low-cost machines. Previously, the organisation behind the scheme said that it required orders for 3m laptops to make production viable. The first machines should be ready to put into the hands of children in developing countries in October 2007."
Watch the video clip.
2 comments:
The $100 laptop is an exciting adventure for the developing world and I hope that the education in developing nations continues to evolve. Once these laptops are in full production I was wondering how long it would be before developers and educators may be able to acquire one of these laptops to see how they might function in the United States or even if this project will expand to other countries.
Yes, I wonder if they will open up the laptops to folks in this country primarily so that we can see how it functions and therefore we could design online courses that look nice on the little computer.
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