Joe Griego

Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 10:12 AM
To: EDTECH@CETPA-K12.ORG
Subject: [EDTECH] OLPC - The kid test...

Okay, so we received our XO laptop shortly before Christmas. It came in a simple brown box, with just the power cord as an accessory. The battery was in a separate slot in the box, so to start it up, we popped the battery in, and turned it on.

It didn't come with any instructions, so I first handed it over to my ten-year-old son, Joey, to see if he could do anything constructive with it. He immediately poked around the interface and found the GUI that showed nearby wireless devices (it detected our home AP, the neighbor's, and another that I wasn't aware of). When you click on the object, you are prompted for a key, if required. We typed in the key for our home AP, and he was online.

The browser seemed to work fine. He immediately went to YouTube to watch soccer videos (Steven Gerrard is his fave player, for you EPL fans). But, it doesn't seem to play them at all. So, the browsing experience is not the best for viewing videos. But other sites work just fine. Supposedly, it will play Flash videos, but that wasn't our experience, so we were disappointed in that regard.

The other applications were pretty slick. My seven-year-old daughter absolutely loved the video application. It uses the built-in camera to record short snippets of video and audio, for playback. She spent hours producing new episodes of "The Gracie Show" that involved her dolls, stuffed animals, and every family member she could point the camera at. I was impressed that she used the video application by herself, with no instruction from adults at all. That's never the case with our Windows computers in the house.

She used the writing application to compose poetry during the car trip down to her grandma's house during Christmas. It automatically connected to open APs during the car trip, so she went online at several gas stations between Bishop and Barstow.

She also loved the drawing application. It was particularly simple to use, and she spent several hours making random drawings in her room.

My 10-year-old son Joey really got into the programming application, Turtleart. It looked like a GUI-based version of Logo. You connect puzzle pieces together as your program. Each piece represents a logical block. One block may be "rotate the turtle 90 degrees clockwise" and another is "move forward 10 units" and the next would be "create an arc with radius of 5 units" and so on. You put the puzzle pieces together to write your "program" and then click on a button to animate the turtle by sequentially executing the steps in each puzzle piece. It was a real program, making the turtle do amazing things. He immediately got sucked into it, and began experimenting with branching the program, doing conditional statements, etc. From an educational standpoint, I thought it was an incredible way to learn the basics of logic. Anyway, he's STILL playing with that application.

He also really enjoyed writing on the XO. The keyboard seems perfect for small hands (I had real trouble touch-typing on it myself). The screen works great, and works well in direct sunlight, as advertised.

As for technical support, we never really needed it. I was impressed with the user-friendliness of it. You push the power button to turn it on, and push the power button again to turn it off. No more illogical "Click the Start Menu to shut it down" nonsense. I didn't find the trackpad difficult to use, nor did my kids, although I had read that it was troublesome for some reviewers. That wasn't my experience.

The sturdiness is really impressive. My kids weren't gentle with it, and tossed it into the car, into their rooms, onto the floor, with no ill effects.

Is it the be-all and end-all of cheap laptops? Not by a long shot. But I would definitely buy one for my kids - I especially see it as an effective tool for use in the K-5 grade levels. It's a perfect introductory device to synthesize content, and collaborate.

In education, I don't think our goal is to teach Powerpoint, Word, or Photoshop. I think if the focus is on getting our kids to gather information from disparate sources, analyze that information critically, and synthesize it into a unique work, then the XO does that really well, with very little training required. My kids went from zero experience to creating really fun video productions that included sources from their own environment, interviewing friends and relatives, and working on presentation problems. No one cracked a manual on how to make it work - they just used the built-in video application.

The programming application was huge for me, as I've been trying to find a fun way for my son to learn programming. He's asked me several times over the past couple of years on how best to learn to make games, and the prospect was so daunting, I kept putting him off. That Joey figured it out on his own with no manual, no adult help, and no prior training was amazing. The XO programming application is pretty darn awesome for that reason alone.

The writing application is very simple to use, and great for getting kids to compose stories on their own. Both kids really enjoyed writing, and they NEVER write poems or stories on paper of their own volition. But both were anxious to write their experiences on the XO. When the novelty wears off, that's when using it as a collaborative tool keeps it fun and interesting. I think I'll be getting two for the kids, and get them to collaborate on documents.

The music program was pretty fun, if a little complicated. It took adult intervention to get my son and daughter to compose tracks. It's not difficult, but takes a bit of poking around to get something that sounds interesting, rather than cacophonous.

The time spent over the holidays with the XO was pretty eye-opening to what good applications, seamlessly executed, can do for individual learning. Both of my kids have access to laptops at the house that cost thousands. But using the XO is clearly more fun than learning how to use applications on the more expensive conventional laptops. The XO has really hit the mark on creating something that encourages creativity, curiosity, and collaboration. The earlier news on the OLPC America project is very welcome in our household, as I'd love for my kids to have access to this technology.

My son presented the XO to the STEP Foundation (a supplemental advocacy foundation for his elementary school), and did it all by himself. He showed the laptop to the members, and demonstrated each application, and how to use it. They're considering using it in the elementary curriculum, so they wanted to take a look at it in person. We'll see how it goes.

If you want to load Windows software, this isn't your machine. But I challenge anyone to put one of these in front of a child and and say they aren't effective at encouraging self-learning. On that point, my experience is that the XO reaches the goal admirably.

Cheers,

Joe G.
Mono COE

Joe Griego
Director, Information Technology
Mono County Office of Education