Daniel Drake, OLPC Inc. intern, has been in Ethiopia for the past half a month working on that country’s first OLPC XO deployment. He now has a great series of posts covering his (continuing) time there, full of impressions, insights and photos. Some interesting things that I think are of note:

The children are using the camera in the XO to look at themselves, perhaps for the first time. I used to use my webcam as a mirror too, actually. 

The children haven’t immediately discovered the collaboration features on the XO (although given more time, that could be different) but after being introduced to them, are thrilled. I think this makes sense – one kid seeing their message pop up on their friends screen would look like magic – they have never had a reason to think something like this is possible, never thought like this full stop. Just wait till they get hold of VideoChat 😀

The parents see the deployment as life-changing. “when asked about the parents views of the laptops, the school headteacher explained how the parents view the laptops as “the rebirth of their children.” Dramatic. But they said it, not us.

These are just three pieces of very interesting stuff coming from dsd’s weblog. The latest is an update on the second school to receive XOs, this one in Addis Ababa. Keep an eye on it!