Talk:Ask OLPC a Question

Dear OLPC Project,

The Ndebele Art Project is a 501c.3 non profit organization and was started in 2004 to address the urgent need of the African artists in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. I would like to explore the possibility of partnering with OLPC to address the educational needs of the tribe. We have a preschool started at least the building and two teachers and the supplies.

One of the items the tribe has asked for is computers for the teachers and then the teenage children. Our Board will be traveling to Zimbabwe on November 13th and would like to deliver computers at that time. We are looking into solar or hand crank computers, can you help? Our website is www.napafrica.org. Any information you could provide regarding a partnership or the purchase of equipment would be appreciated.

good work

i'm not sure if this is the right place to do this but i want to say that i think this is an amazing project and all the best with it.

how could we help?

I find this project absolutely marvelous, and would like to contribute. How could we be of any help ? Alain.

I'm a Spanish teacher of Modern Languages (English, Italian, French, Spanish). I would like to offer my help to make this project real in any way possible. I have years of experience teaching, and I would be very honored to do anything I could to develop your idea. Felix (miguelmarvel@hotmail.com)

Is Bandwidth needed?

OLPC,

I wondered if bandwidth would be a component? Given it is, would discounted bandwidth access be of interest? Contact at culturecongress@yahoo.com

Public traded company

Is olpc a public traded company, and if not will it be any time soon?

Mesh network capability and satellite connection ?

This a great project and I think it will be succesful in closing the digital divide.

However it seems that the computers would be useless if a user does not have internet access.

I know that the laptops will have wireless connection that is provided by satellite.

My question is will the wireless connection provided by satelitte cover all the regions of the world.. for free?

This is important because you indicated that the machines "will make a mesh network of their own , peer to peer". However this is only usefull if there are a great number of laptops in close proximity. I don't know the distance required to establish this network but it must similar to free wireless hot spots in the US.

How many individual units are needed to make this network effective?

Thanks ooumard@hotmail.com

Range?

How far does the Internet reach? In other words how close do the Laptops have to be to each other in order to be able to network?

Peter Mikael Jensen

Increase public awarness and purchases

Follow the apple lead with the RED products. And produce a RED version. Convince Starbucks T-Mobile to provide free or reduced wifi for anybody with an olpc laptop.

The demand for them would be unstoppable even at $300-$400 dollars. People would be able to check email drink their coffee with there bright red laptop smug in the knowledge that everybody walking by knows they are doing there bit to save the world.

Curriculum Development

I'm a public school teacher with extensive experience in curriculum development. Is OLPC involved in this aspect of bringing opportunities to children in developing nations? If so I would love to know how I can help.

-Joanna

How Could we help

I am a IT support analyst . I would like to offer my help to make this project real in any way possible. I have years of experience in IT, and I would be very honored to do anything I could to develop your idea. Izaak

Could we extend this to Rural and Tribal schools of India?

Blossom Charitable Trust, (Registration No. E6668/Vadodara dated 18.06.05) with Head Quarters in India and actively engaged in imparting free computer education in primary schools in the State of Gujarat. Objectives: To impart skills in the use of computers to target groups/ beneficiaries with particular reference to ICT absolutely free of cost to Children/ Parents/Schools. To improve quality of primary education through use of IT.

Progress so far (October 2006): State: Gujarat :: District covered: Five :: No. of Schools covered: 1762:: Classes covered: 1 to 7 :: No. of students: 602000

Haresh/ Punita::: website:www.blossomedu.org e-mail:mail@blossomedu.org

Messy FAQ

IMHO this page is getting way too messy. Lots of questions have been asked (and answered) - many in 'duplicate'. The TOC is just a flat sequence without any real clustering of related subjects defeating the point of a FAQ/Ask a Question. I would be willing to re-organize it, but I'm wondering about the plans for this page... Should I? Or Shouldn't I do it? --Xavi 09:09, 2 December 2006 (EST)

Well, I did it anyway... I'm not quite sure why though or if it'll do any good. Tried to cluster the mayor areas I spotted, and maybe later will do some sub-sub-categorization (ie: bundle all the "will I be able to buy it in some-country?" together and likes)--Xavi 13:44, 2 December 2006 (EST)

Can we ask people to add questions here instead?

Maybe we should change the text of the main page to ask people to submit their new questions in this Discussion tab. That would also highlight the fact that Discussion pages exist and some questions are better asked in the Discussion tab of another page.

I wouldn't mind. I find the '+' tab a worthy functionality for the page - so much better while trying to ensure that new questions go at the end/bottom and not on top or wherever. But in order to preserve the article page you would need to somehow lock it. Unfortunately, with that solution the users would have to check in more places in order to try find an answer: the OLPC FAQ page(s), Ask OLPC a Question, its archive and then this page! Way too confusing.

On a side issue, I think that the name of the page lends itself to misinterpretations by some (novice?) users: they just ask! They don't care to check if it makes sense or the answer is somewhere in the site (hidden or otherwise)... just like an email, they fire-n-forget.

I've noticed the latest clean-up on the page and welcome it (I didn't dare). Still, I think that many more questions should be clustered, grouped, re-written, etc. in order to reduce the size of the page. Unfortunately, I would think that such reformulation it would overlap with the intent of the official FAQ... --Xavi 10:19, 17 December 2006 (EST)

Split the page?

This page is way too big! The top 5 of Special:Longpages reports:

• 116,862 bytes for Ask OLPC a Question
• 58,610 bytes for Ask OLPC a Question/archive/Q1 2006
• 43,247 bytes for Python Style Guide
• 35,611 bytes for Rollout and community building ideas
• 33,569 bytes for Lo PO

Even the TOC is way too long!

I was thinking that the current ouline could be used to split the mega-page into several 'Ask OLPC a Question about XXX' keeping the original as a place holder for a catch-all broad answer and then guiding the query towards the appropriate page - each with a 'New Questions' section.

It will not stop the 'clueless' from posting 'carelessly', but maybe it'll make easier moving it... currently I get a bit lost trying to keep track of such a long page...--Xavi 12:42, 19 December 2006 (EST)