reviresco
Morgs continues to dish out his flavour of entertainment analaysis, getting on the Guitar Hero Bandwagon and having some things to say about Prison Break (too much testosterone in that show..). You’d better read what he has to say!
Elroy looks at Shinji Aramaki’s Appleseed Ex Machina (strange name..) and finds it adequate. I’m intrigued – I haven’t watched much in the way of CGI anime, and it looks good. The story sounds similar to one of my alltime favourite sci-fi stories, and that could be enough to push me over the edge (that, and Elroy lending me the DVD…). Investigate further at Elroy Online.
OLPC News has announced that on the 6th of November they’re holding a live webcast in collaboration with the World Bank. The topic is “total cost of ownership”, something that the Federal Government in Australia is now just learning about..
The Bank’s website explains it best:
“”Total cost of ownership”
(TCO) is often underestimated, sometimes grossly, when calculating costs of ICT in education initiatives in developing countries. Estimates of initial costs to purchase equipment to overall costs over time vary widely; typically they lie between 10-25% of total cost. That said, there is a dearth of reliable data, and useful tools, to help guide education decisionmakers in their assessments of the true costs of educational technology initiatives.” (source)
So you can head over to OLPC News on the 6th to watch, or check back later as the event is being recorded.
How much does it really cost to introduce and sustain computers in schools?
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A Study of Models of Affordable Computing for Schools in Developing Countries.
11am – 12:30pm (Washington DC time)
6 November 2008
Just back from CASE’s One Laptop per Child Open Day, held this afternoon in Belconnen. We had a good time with a dozen or so people showing up. Visitors were introduced to the laptop and then had the opportunity to play with them and experience the feel of one. This stimulated a good amount of discussion – as Darrel said, you could spend a whole day just talking about the ideas behind the project. Pia made it with time to spare and gave her talk which we all appreciated very much. Revealed were some details regarding Australia’s First OLPC XO Pilot, which is now in full swing. Tom Worthington blogged away during the event, and he draws a good picture of the day (live blogging takes some practice…Tom has had practice..).
As for me, I’m tired but glad things went well. There are plenty of things I learned, one important one is that you need practice to demo a large number of these things effectively. Being intimately familiar with the devices will make the difference when trying to pitch their case, and that takes time.
So what’s next? Basically wait and see what the powers-that-be decide what they’ll do next (In Australia, specifically) we’ll see something solid on the OLPC wiki (wiki.laptop.org) shortly, I believe. More to follow…
Over the past 24hrs the “Windows VS Linux on XOs” debate has picked up [1][2][3], with CNet posting a good article that’s picked up a decent amount of interesting comments. The post concludes, from a child’s point of view, they’re probably going to enjoy an XO no matter what software it’s running and they’d get something out of both. I agree with that. But with Windows installed the Sugar based software activties and the specifically designed constructivist environment is absent (Ina Fried describes as this as the XO’s “personality”) and that defeats a lot of the purpose of the project.
It is clear that the One Laptop per Child effort requires strong involvement from governments to be effective. The insistence by some that Windows be packaged with the laptops reflects policies and legislation that were born in a Microsoft world, so these policies give lawmakers limited options. It might not be that they’re opposed to open source solutions – it’s just that bureaucracy is difficult to change once it’s set up. Earlier this year it was reported that Egypt was interested in the OLPC venture only if Windows was the operating system. At the same time we know there is great support for FOSS in Egypt, we also know that Egyptian bureaucracy is the slowest of the slow.
Throughout the chatter today I haven’t seen a single mention about cross-compatibility. I see the heart of the XO as collaboration, both in terms of users and extended community. So my question is, are Windows and Linux XOs going to be able to wirelessly mesh? And, I’ve asked before, is software developed for Windows based XOs going to be compatible with Linux XOs? Does this mean we’re going to need two separate communities working on basically the same thing, without the ability to share? What happens when kids form different schools meet and some of them aren’t able to join in due to incompatibility?
A dual-boot option goes some way to alleviating my concerns, but there’s a fiscal cost associated with it that takes the machine further away from being affordable. I guess we wait and see!
CNN is reporting on a violent crime committed in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, where minors have allegedly killed kangaroos and seagulls in a zoo.
“Police in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don say three children aged 10 to 12 have admitted killing a 10-month-old kangaroo at the city’s zoo.
The kangaroo and several seagulls were killed over the weekend.
Rostov police spokesman Alexei Polyansky said Thursday that the two boys and a girl admitted the killings. He did not say how the animals were killed, but Russian news reports said they were beaten.” (source)
As an Australian… it feels like those poor things could not be further from home…! I wonder what your average Russian thinks of kangaroos. Apparently not much. (although I guess these kids are far from normal..)
You might have noticed a blip in the posting patterns. That’s because I went down to the coast at the last moment! All I have to show for it are a few pictures of Alex’s ADHD dog and some local flora. I could have done worse!
Clive Longbottom at Silicon.com suggests a list of things you don’t want to assume when working on something like the One Laptop per Child project. Literacy, competency and connectivity are three things you need, that’s for sure. And, quite rightly, he suggests that content is king.
The nature of the beast is that content has to come after the device, and the OLPC project is mature enough to focus on that now, I feel. As i write this I get a ping about the Wologna Traditional Dance. Didn’t know much about it until right now, but I know that the OLPC Etheopia Cultural Content pack that has just been released is going to explain it to me. And I know that, at a time where indigenous knowledge is disappearing, this is just the kind of content we need to be creating. If we can blend learning traditional knowledge with learning technology, ancient tradition can be secured and shared, while empowering those who are recording it. Cool.
It’s been a long time in the making – and the behind-the-scenes material I have, you would not believe! Powers Cosmic Episode 1 is complete and just in time. If the majority of your television viewing for the past few years has been Huey’s Cooking Adventures and Antiques Roadshow, some of the jokes might go right over your head. But for all the Boll Weevils out there, head over to Elroy Online and get your next fix of TV related humor!
I never actually thought to eat ostrich before…
“Iranians eat the evidence before mile-long ostrich sandwich makes it to Guinness Book
of World RecordsIran tried to make it to Guinness Book of World Records by assembling the a 1500 meter-long sandwich. On Friday, October 17, over 1000 cooks got together in Mellat park in Tehran for this momentous occasion. They worked together in from early morning to put together the giant sandwich using about 1000kg of ostrich meat. Guinness representatives were also present to take the official measurements. So were a big crowd who were watching anxiously as the sandwich was being assembled!”