Great article. It nicely presents the success of the XO as hardware, and quite accurately (in my opinion) indicates that this “was probably the easiest piece of the puzzle”. Uruguay appears indeed to have been quite successful in setting up connectivity and infrastructure.

There is an area we hear very little of, and maybe it has not been as successful as distribution and connectivity.

You mention it: “how teachers and students were incorporating … into the classroom environment”, “how to implement the laptops into their curricula and classrooms”. Please, could you tell us more? The appearance is that it is not happening across the board, beyond a few anecdotes here and there, and it might have been good you visited a school that has had the XOs beyond the honeymoon effect, and you could tell us about, hopefully, success in these machines having some results in actual learning happening in the classroom, about which there are no detailed, factual reports, from anywhere (I cannot count the “50% improvement in reading” that supposedly happened in Peru – claim that had no evidence attached).

Please, this is VERY important, especially as many of us are waiting to see XOs actually are something where actual, measurable learning happens.

thank you

Michael

and coherent education system. Let me know of any other country in the world where such implementation is occurring.

This is not correct. While Uruguay was the first country to commit to purchasing laptops. Peru and other countries followed within weeks, before the end of 2007. There are now roughly 40 countries with XO laptops, and over 15 who have thousands.

Great article otherwise.