OLPC in 2009

Is it just me or has this blog seem to be in more of a sate of reacting to other work, rather producing its own lately?


I've been dwelling on a few things lately, as one should at the start of a new year. One of them is my involvement with OLPC. This article here (Our One Laptop Per Child Hopes for 2009) hits on a lot of what OLPC has been able to do last year, but also points out where they need to move forward.

Perhaps rightfully so, he starts off with Sugar - as I myself will. From my first encounter with the OS - trying pathetically to figure out what I was doing with that ridiculously tiny keyboard and mouse - to writing guides on how to use it, I have to say that overall I'm happy with Sugar. Version 8.2 was yet another milestone that I was pleased with, but my biggest gripe with Sugar is that I was never able to get a few key features to work. Mainly getting two or more of the XOs to 'talk' to each other. Also getting the XOs online at times is merely frustrating. I would love to see Sugar improved in those two areas, since wireless communication is a principal need of the XOs.

Next up is the design. Ever since I first got my hands on the XO, I was quite impressed with how it looked and I'm not alone - almost everyone finds the machines to be engaging just my the mere sight of them. One of my wishes for OLPC is to make the two stylus areas surrounding the track pad actually usable. As of now - as far I know - there hasn't been software that took advantage of their presence.

Continuing with the subject of the XOs' design, some of you may remember the conceptual designs of the next XO and I really hope to hear some news about bringing those plans to life this year. However, I remain a bit sceptical on how those plans can be well done and still stay in the same price range as the ones we have now. With more information released, I along with the rest of the community can determain for ourselves if they would really be able to succed.

The last thing I want to hit on is the software. When I was at NECC back in 2007, I was asked by a teacher if she should try and get the XOs for her students, or if she should go with the Classmate or any other netbook. The best I could tell her was that if her students were in elementary school, then the XOs were a great choice, however reaching up to the middle school and high school age ranges, another choice maybe better to go with. I said this because I saw as the XOs geared to those younger age ranges. The thing is with that is doing so limits the usefulness of the computers and creates a stigma of being a 'child's tool'. What I would love to see this coming year is the XO having more mature learning software for older adolescents. The (somewhat) recent addition of Microsoft Xp being implimented on the machines may allow for such a thing, no matter how painful it was to watch that deal be set in place. Expanding to at the very least middle schoolers may be what allows the XOs from being stomped out by the competition.

All in all, I can't see my participation with MOUSE in regards to the OLPC ever really changing. Though I'm at a lost for how to further my involvement at the moment, I'm sure I'll be able to come up with something in the upcoming months.

OLPC and Amazon - Side by Side

Link to Article.

This is a very, very nice touch by The One Laptop Per Child organization. According to the article, they've teamed up with Amazon.com to help sell the XOs in their upcoming relaunch of the Give One, Get One (G1G1) program.

I remember the first launch of the G1G1 program sometime ago. One of my teachers had participated, but it took a questionable amount of time for her to receive her machine. It appears that this move is to avoid running into those problems this time around.

Hopefully, many more people will join in and buy the XOs. The first round had some positive results, so heres to more of that successive!

My Old (Semi)Forgettten Wiki

Remember that wiki I worked on a few months ago? Remember how I was all gung-ho about having people work on it. Well, things didn't work out like I would have liked. Right now, my poor wiki is just sitting somewhere on the web collecting dust.

I have to change that, and I would like to have all of your help as well.

Very soon (at least within a day or two) I will be posting a little article up here so that you all and read and give me feed back on before I submit it to olpcnews. The article is going to be asking for people in the OLPC community to join the wiki and help to develop it. Sitting here watching this forum has rekindled my desire in watching that site made into something of use - not just taking up useless memory no the internets.

OLPC 2.0

Currently there are plans to release the next version of the OLPC laptops in a few years (I read 2010 somewhere). After reading about the features that it is (hopefully) to have, I just can't wait for it. Its to come with touch screen capabilities, will cut down on power consumption, and will look more like an e-book rather than an actual laptop. I'll definitely be keeping up on the details as they are released but for now I'm wondering how in the world am I going to get my hands on one when the time comes...

Wiki in French!

Hey, just wanted to say that a French translation of my wiki project is under works. All the credit must go to my Belgium friend Caroline, for all of the time and effort she is putting into it.

And here I thought that my dream of seeing it translated was never going to happen... (ha!)

You all can find the site here.

Today's Presentation at Sun

Finally, the big day arrived. My OLPC wiki presentation.

When the day started, I wasn't feeling nervous. Not nervous at all. A bit worried though. Worried that I did not plan out a good presentation, since at that point, I didn't. I've noticed that I'm better off contemplating the ideal statements and ideas that I would like to showcase, and then a little while before going up, writing out a brief outline. Detailed outlines tend to confuse me because I then try to stick to them, but with a simple outline I'm free to stray a bit and still give off something good. At home I grabbed a quick meal and went off to Mouse. It was there that the outline was born and here it is.

Introduction to the project

Why we started it.
The goals

Start to show the layout of the wiki.
Talk about navigation, the difference from Getting Started and How To.
Talk about how the page looks when we set out to edit the wiki.
show some example pages.

Videos - talk about how we went about creating them. The three or so day progress. the editing. then show the videos

Pass out the OLPC and have then try out a tutorial.

Speak about how I reflected upon the OLPC project on my blog.

Talk about what i plan to do to get more action out of the olpc community.
I want to start sending out letters, be more active in forums and other blogs centered around the project.

See what I mean? Just little notes to help guide me along. Anyways, after maybe a half-hour or so we all left to head up to the offices. I had a very interesting conversation about colleges and how all of this work can help me out on the train ride up there - gave me quite a few ideas to try and attempt to but into action what I won't bore you with the details with (not yet anyways...).

When we finally got to the place, we were given our passes and were lead to the room. The room itself was fairly large. An "L" shape formation of tables towards the front, surrounding the projector. Also kind of entrapping whoever was up talking by not giving them much places to escape to (not that I was having any thoughts like that...). After the initial setup, which included finding out that the computers there could not load my videos, we were all set to go. I had asked the people at Sun to go see if they could find the connection cord for my Macbook to their projector and someone happily went off to find one. After all, someone in that building had to have a mac...

Now since I was going second, I sat back and watched my friend go up and do this thing. A little ways into his speech, I had received the cord that I needed and continued to watch, and as I watched I scribbled down some more notes for myself. It was around then that I little fit of nervousness began to creep up into the pit of my stomach, but I was able to keep it under control by a mixture of ignoring it at some points and acknowledging it at others - the last thing I needed was a distraction. Anyways, my friend had finished his excellent address of his project and it was finally my turn to jump into the fray.

After an introduction by Carole, detailing what OLPC was all about and the numerous things that I've done with the machines, I opened things up by asking for a guinea pig from the crowd. I saw them up exchange anxious glances across the tables and watched them offer each other up. All of which was funny to watch and served to help relieve some of my own anxiety. When someone had finally allowed themselves to submit, I had her come up and try to open to XO. And what a sight that was. She had started off pressing areas of the computer that should thought buttons should be, fliped it over, messed with the battery a bit, and so on and so forth until she finally gave up. Her successor was not much better, but I believe that she had manged to pull down the ears - the first step in the sequence. (I forget who it was that tried asking the computer to open...) But it was the third person who got it. And this person had happened to be a 10 year old girl. Now, I had orignally stayed away from calling on her for a reason - my plan was to give the adults an untempered shot at figuring it out, and then when they failed, I would pick on one of the kids who happened to be there to wow everyone. Now the little girl came up to the table the XO was on, stood in front of it, looking down with a thoughtful gleam in her eye and...

Picked up the laptop and preceded to shake it.

At that point, I saw my vision of the perfect launch dashed out of existence. The look on my face must have been similar to one a person might don if they had, lets say, beckoned their cat over to them quite possibly to play with it, only to have said cat, in one mighty and sheer random heave, leave a hairball in their lap. Disappointment does not begin to cover it, that semi perceived betrayal of my expectations. The little girl continued to take stabs at it though, refusing to give up and she did, in time, manage to open it - thus saving and consequence restoring my hope for my demonstration.

The rest sort of just feel into place after that. I carried on and finished sans showing the videos I made - the connection cord just was not the right fit. The resulting conversation we all had afterwards gave birth to many ideas, some of which may end up being explored here should I get the time.

I would like to express my thanks to Sun for allowing us to come, to the audience for showing up, and to Mouse (especially JB) for the help on the project.

Videos for OLPC wiki

Here are the two videos for the wiki. Took three days to put together, and they may be a bit amature, but we did put a lot of work into them!

OLPC Wiki update 4/21

The video taking session is now complete. We have two videos in the can for opening night. All we have to do now is edit them, fix up the wiki, and write up the report. All before Thursday. Should be fun...

Anyways, today was fairly interesting. I'm still at odds with hearing and watching myself (its just so irritating...) but I was able to get through it. The main issue was that I kept rabbling like I do in my usual speech and writings, which is bad for a straight to the point tutorial video. We had to do quite a few takes before I got it remotely correct. But, whats done is done. And I'm happy to now be able to carry on. We've been making good time. Anyways, I'll report back again tomorrow.

My Spring Break is pretty much shot (in the best way possible)

As the title says, my spring break is more or less gone. Not that I mind at all, its just that whenever I explain to people my age what I'm going to be doing, they gain this odd look on their faces. One that can only be explained as a strange mixture of dismay, objection, and false sympathy. Really, its annoying - its always been like this for as long as I can remember. Whenever I do something with my spare time that is outside of their limited sense of perception, I always get that look. And 9 (or let me be nicer. 8) times out of 10 the things that I do with my time are exponentially better than what they end up doing. The little projects and events that I invest my time into always wield sometime of greater good. Now while I may be called anti-social within my own little circle(s), its because I find that on average the little things that they decide to focus on does nothing for anyone. Not themselves, family or anyone else. Its largely just socializing (along with a few other things I shall not dare to even go into). So in the end, just who's fault is it that I don't want to be around them more so than I have to? Mine or theirs?

Anyways, getting back on topic since I'm now finished with my little rant, I'm spending my days up until Thursdays finalizing the wiki and project report. Then Friday, I'm running to the Business library here in Brooklyn at Cadman Plaza for a little something involving my current internship. Looking forward to that.

In addition to all that, I have to find time to work on my numerous papers and past assignments that I've missed here and there. Amazing how little nuggets of work can accumulate if left unattended...

Oh what a busy week it shall be...

Video Creation for Wiki Has Began!

As the title states, we've finally started to make the videos for the OLPC wiki. This of course is a good thing and a bad thing for me. First off, the good: We have just over a week left to get this part, along with the documentation for the project, done. So we have to get the ball rolling. The bad: I hate being on camera, which is funny seeing as how I want one so badly. I despise hearing my voice after its been recorded and I hate seeing myself on a screen. Its one of the main reasons why I was so happy to have another student join me - that way I could record them and not get myself on tape. I just look so funny...

In another note, taking the shots today was quite fun. JB and I went around the office looking for a place to film, and when we finally found one or two, I kept messing up. I'd lose my train of thought or something and then would stumble. And as if this was not bad enough, there was a point in which one of the XOs refused to work. You see, we were filming a guide on how to update the laptops wirelessly but it had given us a bit of an additude when we wanted to reconnect to the web. So him and I just sat there for a while, watching the computer until I was like "Um...." Hmm. As a matter of fact JB was laughing the whole bloody time. He enjoy my little mistakes a bit too much. I won't be surprised if he ends up making a "bloopers" section of the wiki. Or at the very least, pass it around to everyone at MOUSE.

Windows and OLPC

I've been following this issue for a while and word on the street (or should I say web?) is that a windows based OS is coming to the XO machines. I must say that I'm intrigued by all of this - for both positive and negative reasons. Some of which, I'll explore here in order to give you all a sense of how I came to my overall conclusion.

Positive:

• Opening up the XOs to other operating systems rather than Sugar is a smart move. Not everyone can handle Sugar (due to frustration or otherwise). Its nice to allow people more freedom of choice.
• It also will bring in more of a userbase. Much more people are into using Windows rather linux and so by using that OS you'll also see the general interest of the computers increase greatly.
• This little thought just occurred to me: While creating Sugar to make things simple for kids across the world was a great idea, I can't help but to think that it may handicap them later on when they try to use more mainstream computers. I think that exposing them to different environments as they are being taught with the XOs would be a better method.
  

Negative:

• The project itself may become more corporate than originally planned. There is a chance that the goal may be lost in the shuffle.
  
• Along with the possible consequence of a lost vision, it may end up turning off people that already are very involved with the current movement. People that have already done so much work for the community, thus it would be a shame to see them leave.

Yet still, overall I think that despite Microsoft being the so-called "evil empire", having the OS on the machines would be an interesting thing. It would - hopefully - open all of this new to new people and new ideas. All of which, would help to bring the project closer to its goal. Well, in my little perfect world, at least. Can't wait to see what really happens...

Today's MOUSE Projects meeting

So today after my Internship at the library, I went into Manhattan for a little meeting at MOUSE. Basically it was to touch base on everyone's respective undertaking, and to introduce us to a few people. Two of the meeting's special guests were from Techserve, a store in the city that focuses on all things mac (as a matter of fact, its just a few blocks away from my school). I use to hang out there when i first got into Apple computers - a few of my friends and I loved checking out all the - at that time - new computers and accessories, though none of us ever had any money to actually buy a computer there. I even had a friend that worked there a few years back and he completely loved it. The last of the guests was MOUSE's newest staff member. It was a very enjoyable little get together thanks to their collective presence.
Now for the content of so said meeting: It was explained to us students that we were entering the final weeks of our alloted time to work on things. On the 22nd of April I have to do a little presentation to the others as well as write up a report about my proceedings. Then after that, MOUSE has plans to attend two actual conferences - the NYSCATE Metro Conference and, my personal favorite, NECC 2008. The former is May 16th and 17th in Rye Brook, New York and the latter is in San Antonio, Texas from June 29th to July 1st. I can still remember NECC last year. It was such a good experience so I can't wait to hopefully join in on the action this time around as well. All of our guests stressed how important NECC and other gatherings like it are to the technology world. For both events I really want to a hold on a bunch of business cards. Last year, I let the chance to foster some great relationships with people go and I don't want to repeat that mistake again. I'm beginning to see how networking with anyone and everyone is of a great benefit to me in life and I can use all the help I can get. Not to mention that this type of stuff must look good on college apps, though its hardly the reason why I want to have a hand in everything (though it is indeed a nice perk...). As a added bonus, if I do go, I'll make sure to blog about everything that goes down. I figure a lot of people would be interested in hearing about it.
Last but not least, we talked about summer internships. In fact, I believe that this was the main reason why the people from Techserve were there. We got our instructions on what to do now so we're all waiting to see what happens when the time comes. For now I've got to focus on closing things down and making the wiki as good as possible.

OLPC update - 3/23

So the text portion of the project is just about done. Some loose pages remain to be filled in but that should be simple enough to complete. Also in about a week or so I'm planning to go back over all of the directions and make sure they work for whatever the latest update to Sugar there is. Also I'm still coming up with a way of explaining the developer console/terminal in a very easy and basic way - I'm not all that good with it. Anyways, everything looks like its staying on schedule. Next up is taking more pictures and posting them. Now I just have to get my hands on a camera and time once again.

Revamped OLPC Project Roadmap

My OLPC wiki project is not dead. Far from it. I know that it seems otherwise since I have not been writing about it for a long while now, but let me tell you, the project is back on the ball. Wednesday afternoon I made my way up to mouse to discuss what we were going to do from here on out. I have not visited the offices for quite some time due to all of my prep classes, so it was nice to go back. The fact that I got to see everyone again was, alone, well worth the time. And as a little bonus, I got to pig out on these wonderful triangular cookies that I've now forgotten the name of.

Anyways the overall plan looks a little something like this:
We hope to get all/most of the text based sections of the wiki done by the middle of next week. I presume that I will have to go back and update the existing pages so that they coincide with the later updated that the XOs have received and come shipped with.

April will see the creation and uploading of the video section. In fact, this will be the main focus for that month. I'm not too keen on it though, seeing has how I don't really use a video camera much, but I may be able to get a few of my friends to help out if they are so inclined. In addition to this, though it was not said, I would not mind driving people to the wiki around mid April when we should have a fair amount of videos up. I want to do this to gain respective on the usability of this thing. Plus, if we were able to get a certain group of people I have in mind for the task, I would love to have them start writing little things of their own - it is a wiki after all. And of course anyone else, especially my readers, is free to go to the wiki and sound off on it either here or their.

Moving on past April, I'm hoping to see my startup of the site come to an end. I'm wishing that around May or June I'll see people going there of their own accord, editing and adding pages. I do still plan to over look things to make sure everything is going well, but eventually I want to step back and let the wiki stand on its own two feet.

So yea. Heres to the hope for a very successful birth of a wiki. Shouldn't be too difficult. But for anyone reading this who has one of the computers in their possession: Is there anything you would like to see done?

Thursdays Olpc

Thursday night I did get around to working on the wiki, though it was not much. Basically I added some more pages to the RSS reader section. Also, the more I write, the more I develop a nice little map of how all the pages will(hopefully) connect to each other. Sort of like a little road map, relating pages to others with similar/necessary content in order make the most of what one just read. I figure that making sure that, at the very least, I create the outline of connective as I write will benefit in the long run - I won't have go back and shift things around as much if I already have the foundation laid out. However, now that I think about it, this really just seems like a logical progression of things that I should have realized would be essential since the beginning. Yet, since this is my first wiki, I suppose its better for me to get it now before it became harder to weave later. Anyways this week should see some heavy work being done so look forward to some more posts here later.

Lack of OLPC updates

There has been no new updates on my part for the OLPC wiki. This new term keeps pilling me down with work and I can't bring my head out of it long enough to post something (and yet I still find time to blog...funny huh?). On Thursday I have internship so I'm hoping to use the night before for the wiki. I'm aiming for a couple of hours of nice uninterrupted work should do wonders for making sure I'm back on track with things. Also the upcoming week off from school I'm planning to do some work to make sure I'm on top of some other things as well. I've noticed that one of my problems (or quite possibly the main problem) is time managing. I don't do good work unless I feel a certain way and I can't seem to force myself back into that anymore. I've been feeling very lazy all of a sudden and this is not the time for it! I want to see if applying any of these time managing techniques I've found will help to make me more productive. If I do get around to it, I'll put some of my findings here later.

In other news, on Friday I got my report card... And it was not all that bad. Only two Bs while everything else were As. I must say that I'm fairly happy with them and they give me something to aim to beat in order to end my junior year well. Well I was quite pleased with what I got, there were a few of my friends and acquaintances who went ballistic. I really did not see the point their behavior but alas, I bit my tongue and just watched. And just earlier today I found out about some English honors club my school is thinking about getting into so thats something I definitely I'm aiming to check out tomorrow.

OLPC wiki update and end of the Semester bliss

I've finally got a chance to take some pictures of the OLPC Friday afternoon. I've been planning to do so for a while now, but my school work and other life occurences kept popping out. Most of the pictures are to go on the wiki but I took some extra ones to post here. I really thought I needed to add some pictures on this blog.




Friday also happened to be the last day of the semester. I got all of my work out of the way and I took my math final. Now that final was really a bit of a joke. I never had an easier test in my life. I when went back through it a second time to make sure I was not just being over confident - when I first finished I looked around the room only to see that my friends had the same puzzled look on their faces. Only now does my teacher's comment of how the test will be an A on a golden plater make sense.
I now have until next friday, when the next term begins, to stay home and rest. However, I plan to go out on tuesday and thrusday. Tuesday I want to meet up with an old friend of mine and Thurday I hopefully have to go for an interview and then head to school to sit in on a friend's presentation. In addition to all of this I want to make sure I stay on top of my MOUSE work and languages. I have the time for it all so I better use it properly.

OLPC project update

Today I had a meeting about the project. Right now there are three of us and we've got a nice final plan to work off of. Its basically an edited version of the one I posted up last time. So as of now, my teammate and I have two or so weeks to get most of the major pages out of the way. I have to focus on guides for the RSS reader, browser, developer console, quick setup, and the different computer views.
In the end what we are looking to have is a basic resource where people (techies and non-techies alike) can go to and read on how to get the OLPC fully working. We have a lot of ideas swimming around, so now the only issue is to catch them and put them to work.

Look forward to me posting my drafts and other ideas up here in the next two weeks (providing that I don't forget).

A bit of new motivation

After checking the MOUSE news wire, I now know that they have a planed appearance at this year's NECC. NECC stands for National Education and Computing Conference. I had went last year to present my last project with the OPLC and it was astonishing. It was held in Atlanta and it was so much fun. A whole bunch of name brand companies were there (names such as Apple and Mircosoft) and lots of freebies were given out. Also just being able to meet tons of like minded people to discussion technology and education with was simply a nice relaxing experience.

Now after reading about what MOUSE has planned this year, I definitely want to be able to participate. In addition to presenting the projects, we also get to lead a panel discussion. Because of this, I have new found motivation to get my project up and running to what i wish for it to be come.

Plan for OLPC project

So here are so basic things that we are aiming for the wikipage to have.
List of Requirements:
• Create guide for majority of programs. Includes browsers, updating laptop, word doc., news reader (RSS), developer console, chat, networking options.
• Basic computer use. Includes opening computer, setting up, computer views, keyboard layout, stylist, screen turning, mouse
• Powerpoint presentation.
• Looking over existing pages and edit.
• All pages will be in paragraph-form.
• ***Begin to translate pages into French, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish.
• ***Guide for basic rules on the games.
This plan will undoubtably change over the course of the months. But for now, this should do.