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One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO: First Impressions

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines after undergrad. Not only was it the best education I ever got, but it made me keenly aware of the amazing burden children in developing nations have trying to get an education while helping to put food on the family table. So, I was very excited by Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child project when it began three years ago. It speaks to my passions for education, developing nations, and techno-geek cool toys. ;o) So, I eagerly signed up for the “give one – get one” program they had last fall so I could donate an XO Laptop as well as buy one myself to test it out. I order on December 12, 2007 and by then demand had already outstripped their supply for the program and I didn’t get my XO until March 22, 2008.
Though I was keen to put the XO through the paces from a tech-geek perspective, I decided to take another approach. (If you want to see detailed technology analysis of the XO, a great place to start is the Wikipedia entry.) I wanted to get the perspective of how the laptop would be received and put to use by a child in a developing nation. Now, I don’t have any travel to developing nations planned any time soon, so I decided to take the next best route: I would give the boxed XO to my eight year old son, Ian, and let him have at it with no direction or assistance.
So, on March 24, I plopped the XO box on our dining room table, got out my camera and notepad, and told my son to have at his new laptop. What follows is a summary of what transpired.
Assembling the XO laptop 3:40pm: Ian quickly opens the box, shreds through the protective wrappings of the XO and the battery and begins to assemble it. He struggled a bit with getting the battery to fit in properly. Three attempts later he had the battery in and was ready to open the laptop. This proved more difficult than expected. At one point he was perplexed enough he decided to check the setup instructions. There were none included – well practically none – only simple visuals of what the basic buttons on the XO do and they already showed the XO opened. (This makes sense – trying to develop instructions for every possible language would be a fool’s errand and it should be simple enough to not need directions.) From one of the pictures included that showed the XO open he was able to deduce how to get it open. That done, he found the on/off button quickly. Fortunately the battery was juiced up and it began a slow boot process.
OLPC XO boot completing3:51pm: The boot is complete and Ian has started playing with some of the applications included. Being very computer savvy (he has had a computer since he could sit up – a touch screen PC I rigged up especially for him) he was quickly bored and at 3:59 he said, “This should really come with the mouse.” He found the touchpad and buttons frustrating to use. (Note: I later plugged in a USB mouse and it worked fine with no driver install required.) As expected, Ian was anxious to get online and he found the browser and opened it at 4:04pm. The browser teased by showing a Google screen, but when he tried to search, he got a “no connection” error. He tried a bit to figure out how to get an Internet connection himself, but then looked at me expectantly. (Since he is only eight, I still provide all the IT support in our home. I look forward to his reaching puberty so he can take that over. ;o)
Network setup dialog on XO4:08pm: Dad weighs in. So, it may be that a child given an XO in a developing country may not be given any support in setting it up and using it. Hopefully, this will not be the case, And even if it was, I have little doubt that desire and ingenuity will get every XO connected eventually. But in our house, it was time for Dad to get the XO online. Though I wouldn’t say that navigating the mesh network interface was intuitive, I did have the XO connected to our secured wireless network by 4:12pm.
4:13pm: Ian is surfing using the browser installed with XO and immediately goes to Adventure Quest to play (so much for the educational value of the OLPC program ;o). This causes a problem. The browser does not support Flash (read why here) and like many sites kids visit to learn and play, Flash is required at Adventure Quest. This is where IT support gets really frustrating. I’m now on a mission to get the XO to where it will display Flash content. To make a long story short, this means I have to install a version of the Opera browser for XO, then install an (somewhat) older version of Flash, and then reboot the XO. This was not simple stuff. It took over an hour for me to complete. This will be a considerable additional burden to whoever is supporting the XO in developing nations if the kids using them need to access Flash-based websites.
Using the Opera browser on XO5:45pm: Ian is back on the XO now that he can use the Opera browser to access the Flash-based websites he frequents (Adventure Quest, Club Penguin, Webkinz, PBSKids, Playhouse Disney, etc.). While I’m impressed by the picture and sound quality (I know how little muscle the XO has), Ian is frustrated by the slowness of the graphics and game play. Obviously he is not the intended audience and is visiting sites that this educational tool was not designed to handle. But given the huge amount of e-learning that is produced in Flash (or Authorware), the XO may not be able to deliver a host of learning. In any case, my experiment has come to an end at 6:04pm because Ian has lost interest in trying to use the XO with any of his favorite sites. (I do plan to do some additional experimenting with him: I want him to use the XO to research, write, and print one of the small assignments he gets from school – hopefully that will be in a post coming soon.)
7:04pm – The XO battery goes dead. I had continued to put the XO through some paces after Ian quit. I wanted to see just how long the battery would last as I continued to surf the Web and try out the other XO applications. The battery warning light went on at 6:34, so I would have had ample time to save any work and find a way to recharge. But, at a little over three hours since boot, the battery life was impressive.

First Impressions and Thoughts

So, as I worked through this little experiment and put the XO through some (very limited) paces, this is what struck me:

  1. The XO seems to be quite durable and though it is lacking (probably unnecessary) computing muscle, it boasts a number of features such as webcam, speakers, microphone, USB ports, etc. It’s power consumption is low and it seems like it could stand up to the rough and tumble life in a developing country fairly well.
  2. The mesh network is a great feature. This will allow an entire village to leverage one Internet connection. This is crucial for the XO to move beyond communication tool and become a learning tool.
  3. Given how tech savvy the Peace Corps volunteers (and all the other development workers worldwide) are these days, I’m sure they would love to get a truckload of XOs and implement an advanced learning program at schools.
  4. A small matter perhaps, but I though it was important that the battery was fully charged upon delivery. I can foresee implementations where power will not be immediately available and adoption could drop substantially if the initial experience is no experience at all.
  5. I was very disappointed in the poor browser and lack of Flash support. I understand why they did this (read here), but I feel they could have come up with a better solution. There should be simple service that educators configuring the XO could run quickly on each laptop to install Opera and Flash. There is simply too much valuable learning content available only as Flash – the OLPC committee needs to make it easier to support Flash.
  6. Speaking of IT support, I’m sure any many instances the XO will be deployed through a program that has the resources needed to reconfigure and continually support the laptops to assure they perform as needed. But I also foresee situations where individual users are simply given an “out of the box” XO and left to fend for themselves. In such situations, it would be helpful to have some type of support documentation included in the box. The should be at least enough to get them booted up to access additional support documentation on the XO. The documentation loaded on the XO is tucked way down under “Other” in the Browse activity and only addresses using some of the included software, but nothing on setting up an Internet connection, etc.
  7. Finally, the though that kept haunting me as I worked with it was this: Has the XO’s window of opportunity passed it by?  Is what was a great idea three years ago now behind the times?  Many people are predicting that mobile devices are where the Web is going.  Should we be working on “one iPhone per child” instead.  There are many sound arguments on the XO/laptop side, but as mobile devices continue to improve their computing power, perhaps they make more sense in a developing country.  There are many locations throughout the world that are soaked with cellular connectivity with little or no WLAN connectivity to be found.  Thene there is also the fact that I can purchase refurbished laptops with all the features of XO and running Windows XP for nearly the same price as XO.  Granted they are not as rugged and they consume more power, but would they be meet the same learning goal as the XO without us having to create new PCs?  It is interesting the Intel abandoned the OLPC project to continue developing a competing product (read more here).  The OLPC program has just begun its implementation of the XOs worldwide and I will be anxious to see if they are widely adopted or are superseded by newer, cheaper mobile devices.

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for April 2nd through April 6th

These are my links for April 2nd through April 6th:

  • MediaShift | PBS – A great resource regarding the revolution in digital media with detours into journalism and learning. From PBS and hosted by Mark Glaser
  • Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business – A thoughtful look into the future (?) of monetization in a Web based world. The implications for learning and performance are intriguing. If all information and services are "free" then the world is truly flat and only innovation will deliver advantage

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for April 2nd

These are my links for April 2nd:

  • Enterprise 2.0 – The video/audio/presentation archive for Enterprise 2.0 Conference (June 2007). Great ideas about the future of collaboration and KM (E2.0 is the new KM ;o)
  • Enterprise 2.0: The New, New Knowledge Management? – Amen. Tom Davenport: “If E2.0 can give KM a mid-life kicker, so much the better. If a new set of technologies can bring about a knowledge-sharing culture, more power to them.” As I have stated earlier, E2.0 is simply better tools for KM.

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for April 1st through April 2nd

These are my links for April 1st through April 2nd:

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Web 2.0 in Italian and German

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This week I have been in Milan delivering train-the-trainer for our Web 2.0 University™ (W2U) partners at Reply. Reply has license to exclusively deliver the Web 2.0 Executive Bootcamp, Enterprise 2.0 Bootcamp, and Ajax Bootcamp in Italy and Germany. It has been an exciting week working with the dedicated and experienced folks at Reply to localize our learning content for their target audiences.
Reply E2.0 TTTDuring the training we discussed how many of the Web 2.0 ideals and applications play out differently in Italy and Germany. From the legal restraints that make music sites like Pandora impossible to the generally more conservative attitude toward social applications, Reply is customizing the W2U content to deliver outstanding learning to their clients. They have become quite Web 2.0 savvy and I’m sure they will do a great job leading the 2.0 revolution in Europe. So, if you want to leverage the competitive advantage of Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 in Italy or Germany, visit the Reply W2U site.
Unlike most trips abroad, I took some extra time to enjoy Milan. Friday evening I had the great pleasure of being treated to dinner by Piero Rivizzigno, the CEO of the soon to be released, Glossom.com. (This social website will focus on design and fashion – link to come soon where you can learn all about it.) Piero took me into the city center for the best fresh mozzarella I have ever had as well as traditional Naples pizza that was fantastic. Piero mentioned that the owner of the Buffalo Ristorante (I think that was the name – confirmation to come) is hoping to open a restaurant in Georgetown in DC. That would be a wonderful development! Piero was a great host and our discussion of the future of social applications was illuminating. We discussed data portability and Piero was spot-on in his observation that website-owners who benefit from the content we provide need to do a better job of sharing their revenue (at least a small portion) with us.
Saturday I got to play tourist in full glory and traipsed all over Milan city center. I visited the Parco Palestro, the Castle of Milan, and the Milan Duomo and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Sadly, the battery on my camera bit the dust at the Duomo, but here are a few pictures:
The Palestro in the Parco Palestro…

Milan Palace

The drawbridge at the southern “Little Bridge” entrance to the Castle of Milan:

Milan Castle Drawbridge

Inside the Caste of Milan (or as it should be called – the castle of cats – they owned the moat):

Milan Castle

Approaching the Duomo Church (both inside and out, it is simply magnificent):

Milan Duomo

My personal favorite: A beautiful fountain fighting the unbelievable moss that it swallowing it with the Duomo behind:

Milan Fountain near Duomo

Now it is on to the butt-busting flight from Milan to Frankfurt to DC and back to my family (hopefully my son will look up long enough from Adventure Quest to notice I’m home ;o).

Posted in: Business, Internet, Off Topic

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for March 26th

These are my links for March 26th:

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for March 15th through March 17th

These are my links for March 15th through March 17th:

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The Future of Enterprise Computing – UVA School of Commerce

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of presenting at a great day of learning on The Future of Enterprise Computing at University of Virginia. The seminar was put together by Professor Ryan Nelson, the director of the Center for the Management of Information Technology (CMIT) in UVA’s McIntire School of Commerce. Ryan pulled together a great panel of speakers:

  • Andrew McAfee, Harvard Business School, the person who coined the term “Enterprise 2.0”
  • Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s Chief Technology Architect
  • Jeff Kelly (yours truly) representing Web 2.0 University(tm)
  • Lewis Shepherd, CTO at Microsoft’s Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments

The audience consisted of about 70 graduate students in UVa’s MS MIT program and about 30 members of UVa’s Center for the Management of Information Technology. We were fortunate to be one of the first groups to present in the newly remodeled, state-of-the-art facilities in Rouss-Robertson Halls. I’ll give a brief recounting of each presentation, but I’m hoping that soon I will be able to edit this post to add links to videos of the presentations (3/17 update: it turns out the videos can’t be released – sorry about that).
Andrew McAfee at UVAAndrew McAfee led off with a great 60-minute summary of Enterprise 2.0 and it’s implication for enterprise technologists. I’ll briefly mention two points he made that I thought were intriguing. The first was his discussion of the underlying trends of E2.0 which included “lack of up-front structure” and “mechanisms to let structure emerge”. Those two trends align with the “freeform” and “emergence” concepts that Dion Hinchcliffe added in his FLATNESSES checklist – which is an extension of Andrew’s original SLATES checklist. We discussed it briefly over lunch, and the E2.0 trends that Andrew is encountering are congruent with what we have been seeing. The other interesting idea Andrew introduced centered around the value of weak ties in a social network. He mentioned Mark Granovetter’s The Strength of Weak Ties from 35 years ago and the Web as platform for social network is reproving how accurate Marks isights continue to be. He postulated – and I agree – that the people with whom we have weak social ties may be more valuable than the people with whom we have strong ties. That idea supports the research I have been doing about the importance of diverse and inclusive groups as the greatest driver of innovation.
Paul Dugherty at UVAPaul Daugherty was the second presenter and he provided very rich insight on the future of technology and what it means for the enterprise. Accenture has surpassed IBM as the world’s largest systems integrator, so Paul certainly has a keen perspective from which to predict future trends. His presentation was full of rich insight. While there was too much great content to review here, I will share his list of the eight power shift trends that will impact enterprise technology:

  1. Cloud Computing & SaaS
  2. Systems Integration – Regular & Light
  3. Enterprise Intelligence at Scale
  4. Continuous Access to People and Content
  5. Social Computing
  6. Explosion of User-Generated Content
  7. Gradual Industrialization of Software Development
  8. Green Computing

Jeff Kelly at UVAJeff Kelly – I designed my talk to give the audience of technologists insight into the requests they might see coming from the business line. I based it on the platforms and strategies that resonate the most with the audiences we have at our Web 2.0 University ™ learning events. I provided a very brief summary of our two most popular learning events and then the topics that resonate the most with the business leaders who attend. You can see that list on slides 13 and 18 in the presentation deck linked here:

UVA Presentation Slides

uva_shepherd.jpgLewis Shepherd gave a great capstone presentation that illustrated the practical application of the ideals and theories covered earlier in the day. His perspective was that of someone who came to DC from Silicon Valley after 9/11 to help devise ways for the US intelligence community to better gather, share and collaborate on various intelligence sources. So, much of his presentation focused on implementing Enterprise 2.0 platforms in a ultra-secure environment. His insights were excellent and provide great fodder for countering security-veiled resistance to E2.0. (It gives us the ability to say, “well I’m sure the information sharing your employees will do does require the most robust security available – let me tell you how the US intelligence community uses to wikis to share top-secret information…”). Lewis walked us through the evolution and success of Intellipedia as well as covering some other federal E2.0 projects. He also pointed out that my alma mater, EPA, is doing some great Web 2.0 work at epa.wik.is. I encourage you to read the EPA Web 2.0 Whitepaper – grand kudos to Brand Niemann and everyone else who is finally getting EPA to the level of public data exchange the Myles Morse and I (and many others) were hoping for 14 years ago when we worked on Enviro$en$e.
The day wrapped up with a panel moderated by Stefano Grazioli where Lewis, Paul, and I (Andrew had an early flight) fielded questions. The entire day was a great learning opportunity and I look forward to delving deeper into the wealth of information that was presented.
Thanks much to Brian Weston for posting pictures from the event!

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for March 10th

These are my links for March 10th:

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Learn to Adapt bookmarks for March 5th through March 10th

These are my links for March 5th through March 10th:

  • Phun – 2D Physics Sandbox (Cool – Download This!) – What a great example of discovery learning, playing to learn, and "teaching" advanced concepts on the Web (OK – on the computer). If you have a geek-in-training at home, have her (or him) download this and play – boom – instant physics course.
  • Scope of Learning Responsibility (The Learning Circuits Blog) – I hope to have time to respond to this one soon. I think the responsibility of corporate learning organizations is changing as quickly as the way people learn is – all due to the Web. The new responsibility may be curator.
  • The Social Graph: Issues and Strategies in 2008 – Dion does the crystal ball as to the impact of social networks in 2008. Loads of insight and ideas that can easily be extrapolated to learning. Although, I don't agree on fatigue – people will tire of too many profiles and demand integration.
  • From Push to Pull: Emerging Models for Mobilizing Resources – A lengthy but insightful whitepaper from John Hagel and John Seely Brown from way back in October 2005. It begins (?) Hagels continued discussion of the organizational transformation needed to move from push to pull.

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