Update on Low-Cost Laptops: Birmingham (Alabama, US) Schools to Get XO Computers

Birmingham (Alabama, US) Schools to Get XO Computers. AL.com (as noted by TechnologyLearning). Online December 2007. … Birmingham city schools will be the first in the nation (US) to receive laptop computers designed for children in third-world countries. … 15,000 XO laptops for $200 each from One Laptop Per Child, enough to supply every student in grades one through eight in Birmingham city schools with a laptop. …

Update from XO: MIT spinoff's little green laptop a hit in remote Peruvian village

MIT spinoff's little green laptop a hit in remote Peruvian village. Frank Bajak. Chicago Tribune. Online December 2007. … Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago. … These offspring of peasant families whose monthly earnings rarely exceed the cost of one of the $188 laptops — people who can ill afford pencil and paper much less books — can't get enough of their "XO" laptops. …

Informative Reading 2007 Horizon Report

2007 Horizon Report (as noted in What happens when the Ivory Tower meets Web 2.0?. Nate Anderson. Arstechnica.) Online December 2007. … study of educational technology from EDUCAUSE and the New Media Consortium. … six key technologies … will make an impact on education in the next one to five years:
*User-created content
*Social networking
*Mobile phone integration
*Virtual worlds for learning
*New forms of scholarly publication including Wikis
*Massively multiplayer educational gaming
(Ginny notes: The 2007 Horizon Report and the Arstechnica article address Web 2.0 in higher education. I believe that K-12 education will follow these same trends. As always, I welcome comments on this and any blog posting.)

ICT Support: Enriching Education through Digital Sharing

Enriching Education through Digital Sharing. (A compendium of stories from eSchool news archives) eSchoolNews. Online December 2007. ...Thanks to new technologies, it’s now easier than ever for schools and other organizations to create rich, online repositories of learning “objects” that students, teachers, and other users can draw upon at their own convenience to enrich their education. Teachers across the globe, for example, are taking open digital content items and repurposing them for use in their classrooms; universities are making course content available online to users worldwide; and schools and vendors are creating online, interactive learning communities for educators to advance their knowledge and skills. …

Informative Reading: Survey of ICT in Education in Africa (Volume 2): 53 Country Reports

Survey of ICT in Education in Africa (Volume 2): 53 Country Reports. World Bank InfoDev. Online December 2007. … Algeria to Zimbabwe: … (individual country reports) identifying current policies, activities, developments and challenges … Country report for Egypt.

Update from Microsoft and XO:Microsoft trials XP on XO.

Microsoft trials XP on XO. BBC. Online Dec. 2007. Microsoft is to begin field tests of Windows XP working on the so-called $100 laptop, or XO, early in 2008. It has not committed to offering XP on the XO laptop but hopes to release the operating system in the first half of 2008 if the trials succeed. …

Update from Maldives: Broadband connectivity revolutionizes education on remote Maldives atolls.

Broadband connectivity revolutionizes education on remote Maldives atolls. UNICEF. I4donline. Online December 2007. Maldives has recently launched 20 broadband-enabled, child-friendly learning centres, which link 20 of the country's atolls. Supported by the United Nation's Children Fund (UNICEF), the connected Teacher Resource Centres (TRCs) will create a virtual learning environment accessible throughout the Maldives. …

Update from Google:Google's Cloud Looms Large

Google's Cloud Looms Large: How might expanding Google's cloud-computing service alter the digital world? Kate Greene. MIT Technology Review. Online December 2007. …many people in the industry believe that Google will pull together its disparate cloud-computing offerings under a larger umbrella service, and people are eager to understand the consequences of such a project. ...Schillace (Google engineering director in charge of collaborate Web applications) says that by moving applications and data to the Internet, Google is helping make the computer disappear. "…people interacted with computers using command lines … then used a graphical interface; now people can do much of their work in a Web browser, which can be on a personal computer or a small handheld device. "It's about letting the computer get out of our way so we can work with other people and share our information."