XOs are here

One Laptop Per Child is selling XOs, aka the $100 laptop, to the general public for two weeks starting November 12. The deal? Buy one, send one to a child in a developing country for a total of $399. The possibilities of class projects around this are endless - Imagine connecting your school with the school that received your gift. Want an XO? Think about fundraising through Donors Choose, a webby way for classrooms to get financial support from folks who care about their projects.
Read more about OLPC (and help out one school's cause) at Reinventing PBL blog.
What are your ideas for making the most of an XO purchase?

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Permalink Reply by Matt Kish on October 7, 2007 at 8:53am

Great topic! In my district, another teacher and I are trying to see if we can create a grassroots campaign to get these laptops into our classrooms. Our district has relatively little technology for students, even though most kids are used to using lots of technology at home. I think this program presents an amazing opportunity for us to get computers into the classroom. The chance to donate computers to a school in need in the developing world is a hook that we are hoping will attract attention from parents, students, and admin.

We are trying to brainstorm a way to raise the money, and have had some preliminary talks about a "blogathon," in which students would raise money based on how many blog posts, podcasts, etc. they create.

We are still in the beginning of our conversations, so if anyone has ideas, please let us know! The XO will only be on sale for a 2 week period, so we have to move quickly.

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Permalink Reply by samccoy on October 8, 2007 at 12:47am

I have followed this story for awhile, but I didn't know of this recent development. Thanks! DonorsChoose is a great opportuntiy.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Carmichael on October 8, 2007 at 4:48am

Fantastic! What a great and generous initiative - and structured so that the overfed and overresourced rich (that's us) can't hog the goodies!

Magnificent! And even Web 2.0 friendly, given the possible social dimensions of partnership in learning.

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Permalink Reply by Jane Krauss on October 8, 2007 at 10:09am

Sam, Ian, Matt:
If any of you follow through on this I'd love to track your stories, and maybe we could put our heads together on this. I'll blog about my school's adventures on my Clrm 2.0 page and in Reinventing PBL.

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on October 8, 2007 at 4:19pm

I had blogged about the xo project, too, and noted that my wife and I were discussing the merits of investing in one of the machines so that we could also support the purchase of another for some child in the world. A friend of mine wrote in a comment to my post that she is conflicted about the xo, since it seems to her that here may be another venture funded by (mostly white male) Westerners telling the developing world what it is that they need to better their lives.

Her post made me think in a new direction, although I told her that I believed that the organizers of the project had spent quite a bit of time considering the need for such a device in the developing world, in consultation with various people in various positions (that seems to be what my limited research dug up).
Still, her comment reminded me to consider things through different lens.

I am still undecided but there is part of me that would just like to bring that xo laptop into MY classroom, and open up a discussion with my students about why it was developed, how it works, and hand it out to one student per day to use in class.
Thanks for the thread.
Kevin

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Permalink Reply by Kevin H. on October 9, 2007 at 3:44am

Good lord
My post got posted about 12 times. (Ning was having some hiccup problems at the time and I had assumed that nothing got posted)
My words weren't THAT important. :)
I think I fixed things.

Kevin