In the heart of Nicaragua lies the largest lake in Central America, Lake Nicaragua. Millions of years ago, a volcanic eruption formed a curious island in this freshwater lake composed of two volcanoes — Concepcion and Maderas — the former of which is still active. Concepcion has an altitude of 1,610 meters, which makes Ometepe the world’s highest island on a lake. Volcanic ash has created an extremely fertile island and the volcanoes are visible everywhere on the island. Ometepe is truly a paradise, with its tropical, lush and magical air and soil.
In addition to the natural brilliance of the island and its volcanoes, Ometepe recently became the first digital island in the Americas. To put that in numbers, 100% of its 5,000 elementary school children and all teachers received a laptop connected to high-speed Internet, as part of the One Laptop Per Child educational initiative. Participating students and teachers receive OLPC laptops and the training and support needed to truly realize the potential of these machines
Far beyond the idea of giving computers to children with “an educational purpose”, like if education meant just providing content to be consumed, the origins of the learning philosophy of OLPC has been to provide kids with computers so that they can compute.
Seymour Papert believed, supported by decades of research, that by computing (coding, programming), the learner could be empowered to understand, create and think about their own learning, especially at early childhoold.
This panel from the Spring 2014 Member Event at the MIT Media Lab will explore more in detail the learning vision of Papert. Enjoy!
Panelists: Mitch Resnick, Marvin Minsky, Alan Kay, and Nicholas Negroponte.
The OLPC Canada team is excited to share a new animated video highlighting some of the inspiring outcomes when Aboriginal students are connected with educational technology. Please help us build awareness of this initiative by sharing this video on Facebook and Twitter and liking it on Youtube.
OLPC Canada provides 21st century educational tools to Aboriginal students nationwide. To date, they have connected more than 60 Aboriginal education programs and 9,000 students to technology designed with children in mind. Please help raise awareness about this initiative by sharing this video. It takes a network to connect a child.
OLPC is grateful to the Grupo Lafise for its continued support for the One Laptop Per Child program. Thanks to its generous donations, OLPC continues to change the world, one child at a time.
El proceso inició con una etapa de ideación a partir de un reto de innovación: ¿Cómo empoderar a los niños y las niñas como agentes de cambio usando las herramientas tecnológicas para ayudar a sus familias a superar su condición de pobreza extrema?
Posteriormente se realizó la fase de pilotaje, a la que se unió ChÃa, un municipio de avanzada, cuyo lema en el Plan de Desarrollo es ser un territorio inteligente e innovador; además de una Zona Libre de Pobreza Extrema.
En este momento crucial se pusieron en marcha las estrategias planteadas con las familias de la Red Unidos del municipio, con el objetivo de empoderar a los niños y niñas de 7 a 13 años como agentes de cambio dentro del proceso de corresponsabilidad familiar para superar las trampas de la pobreza.
Fueron nueve (9) meses de trabajo con los niños, las niñas y sus familias en los cuales se desarrollaron múltiples encuentros presenciales que involucraron a todos los participantes en la estructuración de proyectos que harÃan realidad los aprendizajes adquiridos. Igualmente, durante la ejecución del proyecto, los niños y niñas jugaron los tres videojuegos diseñados especialmente para facilitar el aprendizaje de logros relacionados con las dimensiones de nutrición y dinámica familiar.
Gracias a este proyecto se logró generar una cultura de uso de las nuevas tecnologÃas al interior de cada hogar. De la misma manera, se obtuvieron importantes aprendizajes relacionados con la dinámica familiar: la importancia del diálogo,  no lastimar fÃsicamente, compartir más tiempo en familia, comunicar lo que se siente y lo más relevante, las familias conocieron las rutas y estrategias para prevenir y enfrentar el abuso sexual infantil.
Respecto a la nutrición, los participantes adquirieron mejores hábitos de manipulación de alimentos y aumentaron el consumo de frutas y verduras.
Cabe resaltar que se logró un nivel de participación en los encuentros presenciales, del 73% en niños y niñas, y del 64% en los padres de familia, con un 94% de permanencia de las familias en el proyecto.
El juego desde un entorno digital (videojuegos), y un entorno fÃsico (la lúdica en los encuentros de aprendizaje), conectó a los participantes de todas las edades con los objetivos del proyecto generando co-responsabilidad y apropiación comunitaria, aspectos claves para la sostenibilidad de los proyectos sociales.
Part of our focus is to support deployments that have made a long term commitment to work with us. When we have new models, we work hard to provide them as an upgrade.
This means that if you have today XO-1 or XO-1.5 laptops you can purchase an upgrade kit that will turn it into an XO-1.75. It does require that you perform the motherboard replacement, but the savings can be significant.
XO-1.75 with grid membrane and mechanical keyboard. Photo by Sandra Barragan
With this upgrade you get a modern ARM CPU, much lower power consumption (it runs long hours on each battery charge, and performs fantastically well on solar panels). Depending on options, you can get larger RAM and storage. You can also choose to get the new grid membrane keyboard.
If you are thinking of doing this, get in touch with us. If you know the SKU number of the laptops you have, which you can find in the battery compartment, that will make the process easier.
For each variant of the XO you need a slightly different upgrade kit, so it is important that we get it right. Our engineers have done quite a bit of work to plan the different upgrade kits.
Do you know of any laptop manufacturer that supports upgrading 5 year old models to the latest and greatest with a motherboard change, and at a fraction of the cost?
At this time, there is a minimum order quantity of 100 kits. If you are interested in ordering 100 upgrade kits or more, please contact Leah@laptop.org  at OLPC for further details. Make sure you indicate the SKU of the units you want to upgrade.
Unfortunately, due to packing, shipping, customs and warranty logistics, OLPC is currently unable to offer upgrade kits for orders under 100 kits. The costs of shipping individual components packed properly is high.
Order quantities of 1000 kits and larger can be processed faster and at lower cost.
If you have an early XO laptop and would like to see it run better and faster, our latest Operating System release can give it a new life, see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/12.1.0 .
We thank you for your interest in the OLPC project.
