I received my new XO as part of the give one, get one program! I can’t believe it arrived this early. I opened my apartment door on Saturday a couple weeks ago to do some errands and there it was. I haven’t been that excited to see a package in I don’t know how long. I donated on November 20, and so I was expecting to have it by sometime in January, according to their published shipping schedule. I hope that priority has not been focused on shipping G1G1 machines to the exclusion of the developing countries, but I’m delighted to have mine. I showed it to Laura Deisley and she turned about as green as the laptop. (She participated in G1G1 as well, around the same time as I did, but she hasn’t received hers yet.)
For those of you that have no idea what an XO is, allow me to introduce you to the OLPC Foundation. (OLPC stands for One Laptop Per Child.) Their goal is to produce a laptop that sells for $100 to developing nations. The machine is designed to be owned and used by children—it’s deliberately kid-sized (I have average-sized hands and the width of the laptop is almost exactly the size of my handspan) and brightly colored. All of the software is free and designed from the ground up with children’s education in mind.
My initial impressions of the XO have been almost completely positive. The machine itself feels well constructed and sturdy. Lots of details have been thought out, like the latching action of the “ears” as they rotate. The boot screen and login process was well done, and the user interface feels discoverable and inviting. I’m very impressed with the overall polish of the user experience. The activities that I’ve tried have worked well. The only negatives I’ve encountered have been the boot time and lack of sleep mode and WPA wireless connectivity, all of which are going to be addressed in the next software release.
So why am I so excited about OLPC and the XO, and why did I want one of my own? I already have a MacBook. I can do more with it than I can with the XO, and I can type on it without cramping my hands.
I’m excited about OLPC because I believe the XO is a revolutionary idea made manifest. Here are some of the things they’ve done that make me admire the project from top to bottom.
User interface
The UI of the XO is refreshingly simple and free from a lot of the cruft that’s part of every other WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer) interface. The developers of the Sugar interface seized an opportunity that’s exceedingly rare in the world of software development: the chance to build a system from the ground up. They have put a lot of thought into the workings of the XO, and it shows. It would have been much easier for the team to take an existing product like GTK/Gnome and tweak it. Instead, they questioned all the assumptions that people bring into traditional GUI programming, and then developed a system that works very well to reduce the amount of complexity that a rural kid would have to contend with when learning to use a computer for the very first time. Notice that they didn’t trash paradigms for the sake of trashing them; lots of familiar conventions have been kept. Overall I think it’s a triumph in user interface design given the limitations in hardware that they were dealing with—one might even argue that it’s an unqualified triumph.
Open source
The OLPC project is built completely on open-source software, starting from the custom drivers and core OS based on Redhat Linux, through the Sugar UI, up to the individual Activities. I’ve always had a thing for open source software, and I think it’s a real strength for this project. For instance, it means that the OS and applications can be tweaked by anybody, even the kids that own the machines.
Constructivism
The very idea of handing a laptop to a child who is statistically likely not to have running water or electricity or access to books, and who statistically unlikely to complete school beyond the sixth grade, is a radical one in lots of ways. Nobody’s sure how this will all work in practice, but initial signs seem to be positive. I definitely have an idealistic bent, and so I’m really excited to think about kids suddenly being able to connect to each other (and the rest of the world) and learn in a way that would otherwise be completely impossible. The power to reflect and explore is inherent in everyone, and this laptop can act like an amplifier cranked up to 11.
Ownership
I love that the attitude is personal and deep involvement in technology. This isn’t about donating computers to classrooms, or families. This is about the transformation that can occur when a child truly owns a device, using it for play and school and everything else, too.
I could have supported the project any number of ways; here’s why I wanted one of my own.
Pure geeky gadget lust
This is one cool piece of technology! Ever since I heard about the project a few years ago I’ve been following it with great interest. As I’ve said before, this is well-designed hardware and software. Experiencing it firsthand has been a lot of fun.
Educational technology
Talk about something that’s right up my alley. This is my job title, my chosen career. In some ways I count this as professional development. It’s also a great tool for evangelism (bring this to a coffee shop and watch what happens).
Programming
I’m a computer scientist by training, and I think it would be lots of fun to develop software for this system. I’ve never really dived into the open source community, but this seems like a great opportunity to do so.
I’m sure this’ll be the first of many OLPC posts. I look forward to sharing this machine with people and finding out what it can do, and I hope the project continues to build momentum.
