Great OLPC review by a 12-year-old!
13 Aug 2007 (Mon)THANKS TO A G1:1 MESSAGE FROM YISHAY MOR, a researcher with London Knowledge Lab, I got this special chance to read a very focused and balanced review of one of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) machines — by SG, a 12-year-old! He wrote like an adult (and many say, better than an adult):
“My expectations for this computer were, I must admit, not very high. But it completely took me by surprise. It was cleverly designed, imaginative, straightforward, easy to understand (I was given no instructions on how to use it. It was just, “Here. Figure it out yourself.”), useful and simple, entertaining, dependable, really a “stick to the basics” kind of computer.
“…unfortunately, the internet is the only fast element of the computer. My main problem with this laptop is how very slow it is. It’s true that I am used to faster computers, but that’s not the problem. It’s just really slow. I had to wait two minutes to get onto one application. That’s just a little longer than I can accept. Also, it got slower and slower and slower the longer I went without rebooting it. I had to reboot it all the time. We’re talking once every two or three hours of use!”
For more details, go to the “Freedom to Tinker” blog.
- Shutdown Day, 24th March!
- MIT’s $100 laptop project
- The Red Queen Syndrome
- Going online in a f2f class - Help or Distraction?
- Plagiarized Appreciation
- Over 50% Internet users to be Asians soon?
- Flush Goes All The Work!
Posted by J.K. in News | blog reactions | |
August 13th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
I read this article and still can’t believe that the writer is 12 years old
August 18th, 2007 at 2:03 am
I suppose there needs to be some compromise in order to produce laptops that cheap and that massively. Kids are really maturing quickly these days!
August 18th, 2007 at 8:27 am
Yes, some compromise is needed. Regarding kids… Walter, with a well-educated and articulate father like you, don’t your kids write that too?
August 20th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
A large number of kids in the UK finish schooling without any decent literacy, quick shocking.
As for the computer I use the internet for 90% of my work so I’d be all right on theses laptops. What about using online applications for word processing like Google tools?
August 20th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
hehehe…JK… My son Ethan is only about 3.75 years old. He is still half a baby and half a boy (I call him “boyby”). Maybe in another 8 years time he will be like that boy (I hope). Right now, my wife and I are struggling just getting him to sit still for longer than 10 minutes!!
September 4th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
For those kids who used to play fast computer… they definitely not interested to have this OLPC…. Maybe this product is suitable for walter’s son ? you can let him figure by himself