ICT SupportSpecs for 'ideal' school laptop released:

Specs for 'ideal' school laptop released: Project Inkwell drafts guidelines for one-to-one computing devices for schools in developed nations. Corey Murray. eSchool News. Online January 2007. Project Inkwell, an organization consisting of volunteer educators and technology companies, has released a set of specifications for creating the "ideal" one-to-one computing device for students in developed nations. … should be under 4 pounds, come with a carrying case, and provide at least four hours of battery life…

Informative ReadingThe Global Gender Gap Report 2006

The Global Gender Gap Report 2006. World Economic Forum. Online January 2007. …covers all current and candidate European Union countries, 20 from Latin America and the Caribbean, over 20 from sub-Saharan Africa and 10 from the Arab world. Together, the 115 economies cover over 90% of the world’s population. The index mainly uses publicly available "hard data" … including detailed profiles of each economy that provide insight into the economic, legal and social aspects of the gender gap. … measures the size of the gender gap in four critical areas of inequality between men and women:
1. Economic participation and opportunity – outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to high-skilled employment
2. Educational attainment – outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
3. Political empowerment – outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
4. Health and survival – outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio.

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The Global Gender Gap Report 2006 (pdf; 152 pgs; 14MB)
Full rankings (excel; 1pg; 33k)
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Interview: Saadia Zahidi

Update from GenYesGeneration YES: Vision to Action

Generation YES: Vision to Action - Adding Students to Your Technology Plan. GenYes. Cited on EduHound. Online Jan. 2007. Writing a technology plan and want to make sure that it includes authentic student involvement and leadership? Written by Dr. Dennis Harper, this 8 page document (pdf) provides research, sample language, and models of student action

Informative ReadingContent Divide: New Challenge for Rural ICT Initiatives

Content Divide: New Challenge for Rural ICT Initiatives. Md. Shahid Uddin Akbar. International Federation for Information Processing newsletter. December 2006. Online January 2007. … The challenge to overcome the digital divide has been deepening in recent times in most developing countries. Significant initiatives have been planned and some activities have already been launched to bridge the digital divide. Most such initiatives are now facing the challenge of availability of local content, which is the key driver for any ICT for Development (ICT4D) initiative, especially for telecenter projects. The preferred language of the Internet is English, which most beneficiaries of telecenters are not familiar with. Besides, the content available on the net is not useful or relevant to the targeted users of telecenters. …

Update from OLPCOLPC aims for mass production in third quarter

OLPC aims for mass production in third quarter. China Martens for IDG News Service. Computerworld. Online Jan. 2007. … One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) hopes to begin mass production … August or September. … Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand and Uruguay, Blizzard confirmed. … Off the list are China, India and Egypt …

Update on OLPCSoftware on the low-cost laptop for school kids could be more revolutionary than its economics

Software on the low-cost laptop for school kids could be more revolutionary than its economics. AP. Boston Herald. Online Jan. 2007. ... Forget windows, folders and boxes that pop up with text. When students in Thailand, Libya and other developing countries get their $150 computers from the One Laptop Per Child project in 2007, their experience will be unlike anything on standard PCs. … basic home screen with a stick-figure icon at the center, surrounded by a white ring. The entire desktop has a black frame with more icons. … This runic setup signifies the student at the middle. The ring contains programs the student is running, which can be launched by clicking the appropriate icon in the black frame. … view the entire "neighborhood" - the XO’s preferred term instead of "desktop" - other stick figures in different colors might appear on the screen. Those indicate schoolmates who are nearby, as detected by the computers’ built-in wireless networking capability. …