To be honest, not being a teacher I am not really qualified to write a review for this laptop (or any other device) as an educational tool. I have an excuse for mentioning surprisingly GOOD decisions specific to a school environment only because despite Nicholas Negroponte proclaiming that "It's an education project, not a laptop project", no one really bothered to present a consistent curriculum that this laptop is supposed to be used with, so apparently people who run this program know less about education than I do.
I hope, missing pieces will be added as the project goes along, but development of tools in any way other than in parallel with curriculum is a terrible idea that I would only expect from a backwards, primitive education system such as one practiced in US, and I hope, this project will not crash and burn before someone realizes that educational applications come from curriculum and not the other way around. There are a lot of applications developed already, some perform general-purpose functions (text editor, browser, etc.), some range from a simple musical instrument to Python IDE and an oscilloscope with spectrum analyzer, however they don't fall into anything that even resembles a school curriculum.
Even if we take the lists of applications with general educational value that allow user to look up information (such as kalzium and celestia), or perform calculations/simulation (wims), I am sure, porting them to Sugar would provide a better initial set of applications than what exists now -- we know that they fit into existing curricula because this is what they are built for, even though they cover very little of what has to be done. For something as new and unusual as a programming course for kids, the existing Python IDE lacks graphics output while Turtle Art has graphics output paired with monstrously cumbersome representation of a language that confuses kids and adults alike (as opposed to Logo that is clear, simple and almost forty (!) years old).
In contrast to this poorly thought out set of applications (and don't tell me that Windows, MacOS or anything else general-purpose has a better one, they barely scratch the surface and provide atrociously inconsistent interface), the environment itself is a shining beacon of forethought applied to complex devices in the hands of kids. Seriously, I am impressed.
And, of course, taking this into account, stuffing Windows on it would completely negate educational use of its environment and turn all courses involving it into yet another "learn how to use Microsoft Word to write awesome reports with MS Comic Sans font and Microsoft Excel to make 3D graphics". I realize that people who want this laptop for general-purpose computing may demand Windows on it (though I don't see a point -- it can't run games, 3D CADs, EDA or other classes of software where Windows-specific applications may be more desirable for some users), but for learning? What are they going to put on it, free Matlab?
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I wrote a short review of XO laptop with Sugar and Ubuntu ( http://abelits.livejournal.com/37973.html ), and here is the part relevant to this:
Educational use
To be honest, not being a teacher I am not really qualified to write a review for this laptop (or any other device) as an educational tool. I have an excuse for mentioning surprisingly GOOD decisions specific to a school environment only because despite Nicholas Negroponte proclaiming that "It's an education project, not a laptop project", no one really bothered to present a consistent curriculum that this laptop is supposed to be used with, so apparently people who run this program know less about education than I do.
I hope, missing pieces will be added as the project goes along, but development of tools in any way other than in parallel with curriculum is a terrible idea that I would only expect from a backwards, primitive education system such as one practiced in US, and I hope, this project will not crash and burn before someone realizes that educational applications come from curriculum and not the other way around. There are a lot of applications developed already, some perform general-purpose functions (text editor, browser, etc.), some range from a simple musical instrument to Python IDE and an oscilloscope with spectrum analyzer, however they don't fall into anything that even resembles a school curriculum.
Even if we take the lists of applications with general educational value that allow user to look up information (such as kalzium and celestia), or perform calculations/simulation (wims), I am sure, porting them to Sugar would provide a better initial set of applications than what exists now -- we know that they fit into existing curricula because this is what they are built for, even though they cover very little of what has to be done. For something as new and unusual as a programming course for kids, the existing Python IDE lacks graphics output while Turtle Art has graphics output paired with monstrously cumbersome representation of a language that confuses kids and adults alike (as opposed to Logo that is clear, simple and almost forty (!) years old).
In contrast to this poorly thought out set of applications (and don't tell me that Windows, MacOS or anything else general-purpose has a better one, they barely scratch the surface and provide atrociously inconsistent interface), the environment itself is a shining beacon of forethought applied to complex devices in the hands of kids. Seriously, I am impressed.
And, of course, taking this into account, stuffing Windows on it would completely negate educational use of its environment and turn all courses involving it into yet another "learn how to use Microsoft Word to write awesome reports with MS Comic Sans font and Microsoft Excel to make 3D graphics". I realize that people who want this laptop for general-purpose computing may demand Windows on it (though I don't see a point -- it can't run games, 3D CADs, EDA or other classes of software where Windows-specific applications may be more desirable for some users), but for learning? What are they going to put on it, free Matlab?