Give One, Get One

The October 1st issue of Newsweek rocked an article about the fate of the $100 laptop. They're finding difficulty with funding in the last stages of production, so they've opened the program up a little bit. In November, you can buy two for $399: you get one and a kid somewhere else gets one. Check out xogiving.org. They're so cool.

I looked at the specs, and they have a preview of how the interface interacts with the user. When I had heard of these things before, I hadn't realized it was not just an inexpensive, shock resistant computer, but a breakthrough in technology and the way we view computers. Instead of a filing system, the computer journals what the user does with it, so the student and teacher can track progress, etc. Its open source code too, so if the kid wants to modify the thing, they can. It also all looks very collaborative, which is important in this day and age.

This is such a neat solution. It puts the tools to solve problems into the hands of children they affect. I look forward to seeing how it plays out.