[OLPC India] EeePC now or OLPC after 2 years ?

[Marc Valentin]

Hi, thanks for the link ! I sent a message, I hope I will get a
response. So you get 60 laptops for $20000, not so cheap. (The other
40 you have no control of the destination). At the moment the current
model of the Asus Eee Pc is $399, but cheaper models are on the way...
And you can order the quantity you want.
But you are right, the idea behind OLPC is completely different and
that is why I said it is "appealing" for NGOs. However, we in NGO's,
we have to take decisions and there is no way we can have one OLPC in
hand. I feel OLPC foundation should be much more active approaching
NGOs, to give or sell samples to them so they can make up their mind
and get ready.
About learning strategies, I would say Indian way of doing things is
like it was in Europe and the USA, one century ago. The difficult
aspect of making this evolve is the number of children in a classroom
: 40 to 50. It is very difficult to go for modern pedagogy in such a
crowded class. (By the way I was surprised to read that the test class
chosen by OLPC had only 22 children, you find that nowhere in India
!).
Did you have a chance to have one OLPC in hand ? What was your first
impression ?
-marc-

On 11/13/07, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> Hi Marc,
> Maybe the "Give Many" program will work for you?
> http://laptopfoundation.org/participate/givemany.shtml The website says
> that you can direct where a percentage of the laptops will go. I suppose
> you could direct that percentage to your own school...
>
> As for the ASUS Eee PC my understanding is that hardware wise, the Eee
> isn't as robust as the XO. It does not support mesh protocols which
> allow you to build a network infrastructure on the fly where none exist.
> Most importantly, Eee is missing all the activities
> (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activities) that make the XO and OLPC more
> than hardware+software+network.
>
> The way I see it, the hardware, software and network innovations of the
> XO are simply there to support constructivist approach to learning and
> that to me is the most appealing aspect of the project. By the way, I am
> no expert on learning (although I do teach for a living :-)) and someone
> on my campus set me straight about constructivism, etc. Here's her
> article...its an easy read.
> http://online.bcit.ca/sidebars/02summer/inside-out-1.htm
>
> cheers,
> Sameer
>
> --
> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Information Systems
> San Francisco State University
> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>