The Learner Matters, not the Device

I saw, thanks to OLPC News, these two videos.

iPad first day, used by 9 & 4 year-olds from Cameron Moll on Vimeo.

Isaac (4yo) using the XO laptop from Cameron Moll on Vimeo.

Of course, they make me want to have an iPad, and they let me ponder what might be possible with the proposed XO-3.

But they also made me think that what is great about these videos, and about what I have seen with our 5th graders working with the XOs and SOAS and other technologies is that it is the learner that matters, not the device. The device can call something forward in the learner (which, I believe, is there naturally), but the device is NEVER going to be the thing.

How, then, do we allow this natural learning to become unleashed?

Little Bloggers

The blog Rising Voices recently posted a story about children in Uruguay being trained to blog using their XO Laptops.

Pablo Flores of Ceibal, the governmental organization in charge of distributing OLPC laptops in Uruguay, will organize a series of workshops which will gather national and international bloggers with the young laptop-toting students to show them how to set up a blog and take advantage of other social media tools.

So now, what happens when those students have a global voice? What do they say and to whom? And then what happens?

Improvisation in Rwanda

I saw this short article from Engadget about students with XO laptops in Rwanda.
They were finding their way to the airport near them to take advantage of the airport's WiFi connection.

Talk about becoming independent learners!

Followup on the $10 Laptop

The other day, I meant to post about the proposed $10 laptop being developed in India.

Here is a post from the Tech Learning blog following up on the story:
A $10 Laptop?

What do you think?

XO Kickoff Event -- Some Video

Tech Team Training, Part 2

I wish I could capture the buzz. Twenty 5th graders, our XO Tech Team working together to set up our 120 laptops. The buzz of students engaged and enthused. The buzz of people pressing themselves to get a big job done and done well. The buzz of what comes next.

So, as a way of trying to share the buzz, here are a slideshow and 2 videos which document some of what the students were up to today.

Trust me, though. If you were there, you would have been inspired.

Laptops influencing researching and writing

A recent article in the Argus Leader (from South Dakota) talks about the impact of a recent 1:1 laptop initiative in Pierre.

Here are two highlights:

"We're seeing an increased amount of research by students on the Internet," said Wade Pogany, who directs curriculum and technology programs...

and

"What we know is, there's more writing going on," he said. "Is it going on everywhere? No, and that's an issue we have to address."

Click here to read the article.