Low Cost Computing Options That Will Enable More Educators to Consider 1-to-1 Environments

As most Innovative Educators will agree, the key to having a successful 21^st Century classroom is equity and access to some key technology tools like a laptop and digital video camera. Unfortunately, cost has been a huge factor, until now. Many are familiar with Nicholas Negroponte, MIT’s visionary behind the $100 laptop. The dream has finally come to fruition as not only has Negroponte’s XO laptops been released, but he has also inspired the development of an entire class of low cost laptops ranging from $200 - $500. I will be personally testing out some of these new devices and watching how well they work in the classroom.

Here are three suggestions for Innovative Educators interested in finding out more about these devices.

1) Read New York Times Technology writer David Pogue’s review or watch the video.

2) Read about a class that is using the XO laptops in the classroom to enhance writing in the OLPC Blog from Teaching Matters, a New York City-based educational technology professional development organization.

3) Go straight to the websites of three of the leading providers of low-cost laptops.

With the advent of these low-cost learning tools, teaching in a one-to-one environment will become more and more prevalent. I look forward to learning along side other innovative educators the terrific ways teaching and learning are enhanced with low-cost computing and hope that some readers of The Innovative Educator will share their experiences.

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Post Thoughts
(What I've thought or found after publishing the post)

4/21/2008: Looks like HP has also entered the game. See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080408/ap_on_hi_te/hewlett_packard_small_laptops.

5/16/2008: Rumor has it OLPC may be releasing a windows version. Here's the photo from Tech Crunch. Click on the picture for the full story...and more interestingly, comments.

5/19/2008 - From the New York Times:
Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children

After a years-long dispute, Microsoft and the computing and education project One Laptop Per Child said Thursday that they had reached an agreement to offer Windows on the organization’s computers.

Microsoft long resisted joining the ambitious project because its laptops used the Linux operating system, a freely distributed alternative to Windows.

http://www.blogger.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/technology/16laptop.html?ref=education

See what people are saying at Classroom 2.0

General 1 to 1
General Sublaptops
OLPC / XOs
Asus
Classmate