The One Laptop Per Child initiative is about to find out whether Microsoft Corp., a rival that the nonprofit group once derided, is the solution to its problems in spreading inexpensive portable computers to school children worldwide.

Source: eschoolnews.com, item 53832

Microsoft and the laptop organization announced May 15 that the nonprofit’s green-and-white “XO” computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown interface, which is built on the open Linux operating system. That had been anticipated for months, but it amounts to a major shift.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the laptop project–which aims to produce $100 computers but now sells them at $188–acknowledged that having Windows as an option could reassure education ministers who have hesitated to buy XOs with its new interface, called Sugar. Negroponte had hoped to sell several million laptops by now; instead, he has gotten about 600,000 orders.

Beginning in limited runs next month, XO buyers will have the option of computers loaded with or without Windows. Versions with Windows will cost $18 to $20 more; $3 of that is for Windows, and the rest covers hardware adjustments, such as an additional memory-card slot, needed to make Windows run.

Soon Negroponte hopes to sell just one kind of machine with a “dual-boot” mode, meaning users would have Windows and Linux and choose which to run each time. Because that will take advantage of a broader hardware redesign, the dual-boot XOs will cost about $10 more than today’s versions, Negroponte said.

Despite the higher price–and Windows’ inability to take advantage of some key features of the XO–Negroponte said his project would benefit from Microsoft’s strengths in selling and deploying technology.

“I think our goals are dramatically enhanced with Microsoft’s decision and this partnership, because we will reach many more children,” he said. “There are now many more countries prepared to look at the XO and collaborative learning and some of the things we stand for.”

The partnership culminates an odd dance.

Not long after Negroponte first dreamed up the idea of seeding the developing world with $100 laptops for education, he talked with Microsoft about using a version of Windows on the machines. That seemed to vanish before long, as Microsoft’s Bill Gates and a close partner, Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett, publicly dismissed the XO’s scaled-back processing power and small screen.

At first Negroponte wore the criticism as a badge of honor, saying it showed that his little group would upend the laptop market. “When you have both Intel and Microsoft on your case, you know you’re doing something right,” Negroponte said to cheers at a Linux convention in 2006.

Negroponte had other reasons for pursuing a path separate from Windows. For one, Linux is free. That’s key when you’re trying to make a computer for $100. Plus, Linux was seen as easier to configure for the XO’s specific innovations, such as its ultra-low power consumption.

Negroponte and his crew also talked about how the open nature of Linux better suited the project’s vision for “constructivist” learning, with children teaching each other and themselves by tinkering with the computer. Negroponte has said he finds it sad when children learn to use computers mainly as tools for office automation.

“The hundred-dollar laptop is an education project,” he often said. “It’s not a laptop project.”

However, it’s enough of a laptop project that Negroponte is eager to speed XO sales and donations beyond their initial deployments, which include Haiti, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Mongolia, and Birmingham, Ala. (Earlier this week, South Carilona announced a pilot project to supply XO laptops to students in that state, too.)

Negroponte’s first big change was to make peace with Intel last year in hopes of boosting the XO’s technical development and blunting competition from Intel’s low-cost Classmate PCs, which Intel developed in response to the One Laptop Per Child project. But the relationship ended after only a few months.

The Microsoft relationship looks sturdier. Microsoft engineers spent the past year customizing a version of Windows that can run on XOs. Even so, XOs running Windows for now can’t use some of the machines’ security features or their built-in “mesh” wireless networking.

Negroponte indicated last month that eventually, Windows could be the sole operating system, with Sugar serving as the educational software running on top of it. But on May 15, he said he does not envision that happening.

Still, a key question will be whether having Windows on the laptops means children make less use of Sugar, one of the project’s core innovations. Recently a splinter group formed to keep up development of Sugar, and Negroponte has endured complaints that education no longer is his top priority.

“OLPC changed its mission outright, and in the most ill-conceived way imaginable,” Ivan Krstic, a former security developer for the laptop group, recently wrote in an eMail message.

Zie news.bbc.co.uk

68 % van de Vlamingen heeft nu een computer thuis, dit is 15 procentpunt meer dan in 2001. 59% maakt ook gebruik van deze computer (in het andere geval zijn het gezinsleden). In totaal bezit 62% van de volwassen Vlamingen internetaansluiting thuis, bijna het dubbele van vijf jaar geleden (33%)! 59% van de volwassen Vlamingen is ook daadwerkelijk internetgebruiker (thuis en elders).Tussen 2005 en 2006 stellen we een stabilisatie vast op het gebied van internetbezit en het regelmatige gebruik (laatste drie maanden minstens 1 keer).
De ouderen, de lager opgeleiden, de werkzoekenden, de mensen die in geen of weinig verenigingen of vrijwilligerswerk participeren, de gezinnen met een laag inkomen en die geen kinderen in huis hebben, lopen op bijna elk aspect van ICT-adaptatie achter. Jongeren, mannen, werkende, hoger geschoolden, mensen met meer formele sociale netwerken en met een hoger gezinsinkomen gebruiken meer en complexere internettoepassingen. 61% van de internetgebruikers kennen 5 of meer toepassingen.

Op de website van de Vlaamse overheid staat het persbericht, met een samenvatting van de onderzoeksresultaten, en het volledige rapport in PDF formaat.

Intel treedt toe tot de groep bedrijven, waaronder AMD en Red Hat, die het OLPC-project van MIT steunt. De processormaker had, in reactie op het 100 dollar-laptopproject, een eigen initiatief opgezet voor laaggeprijsde, praktische computers voor ontwikkelingslanden. Deze zogeheten Classmate PC kost ruim 200 dollar en doet sterken denken aan de 100 dollar-laptop van MIT. Intels alternatief is ook alleen bedoeld voor de Derde Wereld, hoewel er ook in het Westen wel interesse is voor deze goedkope en robuuste laptops.

Eerder haalde Intel-ceo Craig Barrett juist uit naar OLPC vanwege die beperking; de laptops zijn volgens hem onvolledige pc’s en dus slechts gadgets. OLPC-grondlegger Nicholas Negroponte reageerde fel en beschuldigde Intel ervan filantropie te misbruiken als pr-hulpmiddel. De twee projecten hebben wel enigszins tegenstrijdige benaderingen. Intels Classmate is een meer reguliere pc, draait Windows XP Embedded en is bedoeld voor klasomgevingen. De OLPC-laptop is een computer met ingebedde AMD Geode-processor, draait open source software en is ook bedoeld voor niet-schools, individueel gebruik, zoals zelfeducatie door kinderen. Daarnaast heeft de OLPC-machine een handslinger voor een handmatige stroomvoorziening.

Het lidmaatschap van Intel omvat een niet onthulde financiële bijdrage, alsook de levering van technologie en educatief materiaal. Woordvoerders van het OLPC-project verklaren dat er geen plannen zijn om in de toekomst Intel-chips te gebruiken. De chipproducent verklaart op zijn beurt dat het zijn Classmate-project gewoon voortzet. De regeringen van Brazilië en Mexico voeren al tests uit met de OLPC-tegenhanger van Intel.

Overigens zal de OLPC-machine zelf het prijsdoel van maximaal 100 dollar per stuk (bij grote aantallen) in eerste instantie niet halen. Dat wordt pas eind 2008 bereikt als de massaproductie goed op gang is. De eerste exemplaren kosten 175 dollar en rollen eind dit jaar van de fabrieksband van computermaker Quanta, wat weer wat later is dan gepland.

© vnu business publications
Bron: http://www.computable.nl/nieuws.jsp?id=2050458&WT.mc_id=nb

Bron: nl.datanews.be/news/enterprise_computing/services/20060925006
Stefan Grommen, DataNews, 25 September 2006

Volgens Vandenbroucke zal ict binnenkort expliciet in de eindtermen worden opgenomen. De Vlaamse regering zou die maatregel binnenkort goedkeuren. Maar daarvoor is een extra investering nodig in ict-infrastructuur. Die komt er nu met de 35 miljoen euro die Vandenbroucke nu vrijmaakt en de 10,5 miljoen euro die later dit jaar zal volgen.

Het basisonderwijs krijgt 19 miljoen euro (in 2007 14 miljoen en in 2008 5 miljoen). Het algemeen secundair onderwijs (aso) ontvangt volgend jaar 11 miljoen euro en in 2008 4 miljoen euro, in totaal dus 15 miljoen euro. Het technisch en beroepsonderwijs krijgen later dit jaar nog 10,5 miljoen euro toegewezen. De centra voor basiseducatie krijgen iets meer dan 1 miljoen euro. Bedoeling is dat met het geld de ict-infrastructuur opgefrist wordt en dat er breedbandinternetverbindingen komen.

Van 1998 tot 2002 investeerde de Vlaamse regering al zo’n 93 miljoen euro in ict-materiaal. Ook de scholen spenderen zelf nog een deel van hun budget aan informatica. De Franse gemeenschap kondigde in maart al grootscheepse ict-investeringen aan in het onderwijs, prijskaartje: 60 miljoen euro.

Source: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11300B9MAKAE

With 4,000 students and just 21 computers, the Cotton Hill Girls High School in the south Indian city of Trivandrum wouldn’t appear to be at the vanguard of anything related to information technology. Yet the 71-year-old school is abandoning Microsoft Windows software in favor of its free, open-source rival, Linux.

So when students — typically eight to a machine, seated at two benches — turn on their PCs they see Linux desktop software that helps them navigate their way to all manner of math, graphics, and writing programs. “We’re using something called Linux,” says 12-year-old Arya VM as she plays with Tux Paint, a Linux drawing and painting application. And Windows? “Never heard of it,” she says.

The school is one of 2,600 in the state of Kerala making the shift. That means each of the state’s 1.5 million high school students will grow accustomed to working not in the Windows environment familiar to computer users worldwide, but in Linux. And over the next two years, computer science based on Linux software will be made mandatory in all of the state’s high schools. “As a government that keeps the interest of society over corporations, we are committed to the use and development of free software,” says V.S. Achutanandan, Kerala’s sarong-clad chief minister.

India is shaping up to be a key battleground in the global assault of Linux. The country’s long history of snarling at corporate interests, its widespread poverty, and its nascent PC culture make it fertile territory for the communitarian ethic of the upstart computer operating system. Two years ago, New Delhi said the best way to improve computer literacy in India was to adopt open source software in schools.

Although Kerala is the first to introduce such a program statewide, 18 of India’s 28 states either are using Linux or have pilot projects for its use in various government departments and schools. The education ministries in most states, and in Delhi the federal ministries of defense, transport, communication, and health, are all using the software on server computers. And eight state governments have put their treasury operations on Linux, while the western state of Maharashtra is using it to revamp health-care systems. India “is one of the key countries I have been focused on, ” says Scott Handy, IBM’s global Linux boss. “India has been a star.”

That’s not to say Linux will be knocking Windows off the desktop anytime soon. So far, most of its progress has been in server software, programs that government agencies and businesses use for their Web sites, payroll, and other key tasks. In June, Microsoft Corp. had 68% of the server market, vs. Linux’ 21%, compared with 70% for Microsoft and 11% for Linux two years ago.

The desktop is a different story: Just 3% of India’s PCs use Linux. Still, that’s about triple the level in the U.S. “We expect India to be the first country to use Linux extensively over a large user base across many sectors by the end of the decade,” says Deepak Phatak, an open-source evangelist from Bombay’s famed Indian Institute of Technology. Two years ago, he took a yearlong sabbatical to travel across the subcontinent and make a push for Linux.

Unlike proprietary software from companies such as Microsoft, Linux is based on an open-source model. That means its code is available to developers worldwide, who can tweak it to make it better or adapt it to their own needs. Since the software itself is often given away for free, revenue numbers for Linux don’t add up to much. Researcher IDC estimates that the Indian Linux market will grow by 21% annually, to $19.9 million in 2010, mostly for services provided by companies such as Red Hat, IBM, and locals like Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services.

That’s a modest amount compared with Microsoft’s Indian sales of nearly $200 million last year. But Microsoft’s lost opportunity is still substantial, since it sells Windows at $50 or more per copy to makers of PCs and servers Relevant Products/Services from Dell, and then it typically sells other programs that run on top of it. And if students in the emerging tech powerhouse never get any experience with Win dows, the damage a decade from now could be far greater.

The shift in government has spurred more businesses to use Linux, too. One convert is state-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India, which in 2005 switched its servers to Linux. With the $2 million in savings from using the free software, LIC is adding more computers. Today it has 70,000 PCs, all running Linux, and by next year it expects to have more than 100,000.

Others are taking a more measured approach. Eighteen months ago, when Bombay-based Unit Trust of India wanted to set up a call center, the bank settled on Linux for its servers even as it continues to use Windows on its PCs. “The openness of the system appealed to us,” says UTI President V.K. Ramani. Now, he says, the bank is putting its credit-card system on Linux as well.

Microsoft is fighting back. The company has been working on India-specific products at its development center in the southern city of Hyderabad. One of them is Windows XP Starter Edition, a scaled-down version that can only open three programs at once and doesn’t support advanced networking. But it sells for just over $20, or less than half the price of the original. And unlike the full Windows it comes in 10 Indian languages rather than just English and Hindi. While “it’s too early to say” whether Linux has hurt sales, “we are concerned” about its rise, says Radhesh Balakrishnan, Microsoft’s director of platform strategy for India, who moved from the U.S. in July. “We need to demonstrate superior value to our customers,” he says.

Linux, meanwhile, is having some growing pains. One issue that has slowed its spread is counterfeiting. Since software is widely pirated in India, many users pay nothing for the Windows operating system and other Microsoft applications that they use. Also, since Linux is distributed free, it’s not always obvious whom to call for service. Companies such as Red Hat and IBM support the software — for a fee — but they’re having trouble finding Linux-trained engineers in India.

Those issues have led some companies to abandon Linux. For instance, North Delhi Power Ltd. started using Linux both in its servers and on the desktop in 2002. But the Linux e-mail program it was using, Sendmail, never quite worked right. The company soon switched to Windows and Microsoft’s Exchange e-mail server, and it has no plans to go back. “There were immense maintenance, service, and upgrade issues,” says Akhil Pandey, NDP’s principal executive officer. The good news for Linux? As all those girls from Cotton Hill — and millions of other students — grow up using the software, those issues may no longer loom so large.

September 11, 2006—U.S. and European schoolchildren are losing ground to countries such as China and India that are adapting faster to changing needs and producing more of the high-skilled workers the 21st century demands, according to a new report. Richer nations, especially in Europe, face a growing lack of ambition among their children, fed partly by social inequality that schools have failed to redress, it says.

“Education at a Glance,” an annual study by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), was released Sept. 11. It covers 30 of the world’s richest nations, but it also compares how they stack up with key non-OECD members China and India.

That comparison will be crucial in the coming decades. The number of graduates from China last year–4.4 million–outstripped that of the entire European Union.

While graduates still represent a small portion of China’s population, the number is growing fast.

More graduates in the world have not, as some feared, created a glut. Wages for highly educated students have stayed the same or grown in all the OECD nations. And as technology has advanced, job market demands for advanced skills have, too.

The report stressed the pressures on rich countries to meet the fast-growing demand for high-level skills, and it warned that the United States and Europe are losing ground internationally because other countries are making faster and bigger gains.

Among OECD members, East Asian countries are increasingly outperforming Europe and the United States–and they “succeed without leaving many students behind,” the report said.

Other countries show a marked contrast between high achievers and their struggling peers. More than a quarter of 15-year-olds in the United States, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, and Turkey performed at or below the lowest levels on math–and students from poor families were 3.5 times more likely to do badly.

Family incomes continue to play a role in how well children do in school in industrialized nations–and, in many countries, schools even reinforce inequalities instead of rectifying them, the report said, calling it “perhaps the greatest disappointment.”

The largest inequalities were found in Germany, France, and Italy; the smallest in Finland, Canada, and five of the six Asian countries on the list.

In looking toward future job market needs, the report warned against a “lack of ambition” among youth in many OECD countries that contrasts sharply with families’ push to educate children in many developing countries–especially China and India.

The report also warned about increasing costs of dropping out of high school.

Adults who do not finish high school in the U.S. earn 65 percent of what people make if they do finish high school. No other country had such a severe income gap. Countries such as Finland, Belgium, Germany, and Sweden have the smallest gaps.

The U.S. government spends more per student from elementary school through college–$12,023–than all countries except Switzerland.

Source: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstoryts.cfm?Articleid=6584
“Education at a Glance” report at http://www.oecd.org/edu/eag2006

Many more white children use the internet than do Hispanic and black students, according to federal data released Sept. 5–a reminder that going online is hardly a way of life for everyone.

Two of every three white students–67 percent–use the internet, but less than half of blacks and Hispanics do, according to the data. For Hispanics, the figure is 44 percent; for blacks, it’s 47 percent.

The numbers provide further proof of the important role that schools can play in helping to eliminate the so-called “digital divide” between students of different races or socio-economic backgrounds.

“This creates incredible barriers for minorities,” said Mark Lloyd, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an analyst on how communications influence civil rights.

Not using the internet “narrows their ability to even think about the kind of work they can be doing,” Lloyd said. “It doesn’t prepare them for a world in which they’re going to be expected to know how to do these things.”

The new data come from the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the Education Department. They are based on a national survey of households in 2003.

Overall, 91 percent of students in nursery school through 12th grade use computers; 59 percent use the internet.

Within those numbers, the digital divide between groups is a national concern.

Studies have shown that access and ability to use the internet help improve people’s learning, job prospects, and daily living.

Schools have taken steps to close the gaps.

Virtually all U.S. schools are connected to the internet. The gaps in internet usage between whites and minorities, though sizable, are smaller during the school day.

That’s not the case at home.

Some 54 percent of white students use the internet at home, compared with 26 percent of Hispanic and 27 percent of black youngsters. Limited access at home can erode a student’s ability to research assignments, explore college scholarships, or just get comfortable going online.

Among other findings:

“Household income, parent education, and whether the home has two parents all correlate with higher computer and internet use.

“Public-school students are more likely than private-school students to use both computers and the internet.

“The gender gap in computer use has all but disappeared; girls are as likely as boys to use the internet.

Kids use the internet most often for completing school assignments, the new study says. But they also count on it for eMail, sending instant messages, and playing games.

The racial divide in computer usage is tied to broader problems, including poverty in black and Latino communities and even a cultural reluctance to use the internet, Lloyd said.

Among other racial groups, 58 percent of Asian-American children and 47 percent of American Indian students use the internet.

The numbers are growing for all groups of students–a bit of good news, Lloyd said.

“We should celebrate that, with caution,” he said. “The sky is not falling. The numbers are improving. But there is still a gap, and we need to find a way to address it.”

Links:

National Center for Education Statistics
http://nces.ed.gov

“Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003″
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006065

Source:
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6576
Contents Copyright 2006 eSchool News. All rights reserved.

Under the Intel World Ahead Programme, Intel will donate 8000 PCs for distribution through education departments in SA and Nigeria, and is expanding the number of teachers to be trained through the Intel Teach to the Future Programme (Bron: My Broadband Zuid-Afrika)

Daarnaast werkt Intel ook samen met Afrikaanse landen aan het geschikt maken van online leerstof voor lokaal gebruik. De komende vijf jaar investeert Intel 1 miljard dollar in het Amerikaanse onderwijs en doneert men tevens 100.000 computers.

Wilfred Rubens noteert hierbij:

Ik heb hier altijd een dubbel gevoel bij. Enerzijds werk je wel aan het dichten van de digitale kloof, anderzijds heeft Intel er natuurlijk alle belang bij om ‘Afrika’ aan de computer te krijgen. En waarom als speerpunt Nigeria en Zuid-Afrika? En inhoeverre hebben de landen zelf daadwerkelijk wat te zeggen over de aanpassing van de content?