[Edu-sig] OLPC (was FYI: PataPata postmortem link)

[Dethe Elza]

On 29-Nov-06, at 4:45 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

> Would you agree that the software (and not the greenish toy-like
> hardware) would make all the difference between that little machine
> being a toy and it being a serious platform for education? Why, then,
> are so few folks working on actual educational software for it? So
> far, you can count the specifically educational activities on the
> OLPC on one hand. Even if you lost most fingers.

I'd love to write software for the OLPC, but I don't have one  
available.  The virtual version is distributed as a VMWare image,  
which is great as far as it goes.  The VMWare player hasn't been  
ported to my computer yet (Mac Intel) and the image doesn't load in  
Parallels (the VM I use for running Windows for testing).  I've  
signed up for the beta program with VMWare, but haven't heard back  
from them.  So unless I want to spend several hundred dollars on a  
computer to run a simulation of the $100 laptop, I'm out of the running.

I'm sure when the simulator (and the real thing) get into more hands  
you will start to see more software for it.

--Dethe

Young children play in a way that is strikingly similar to the way  
scientists work --Busytown News