OLPC South Carolina expands laptop program

Last week, Jim Rex, State Superintendent of Education in South Carolina announced that South Carolina would be expanding their One Laptop per Child project. A generous donation from Blue Cross Blue Shield is funding the expansion of South Carolina’s current laptop program.

Blue Cross Blue Shield donation helps expand One Laptop per Child project

An initiative to improve student achievement by making laptop technology available to every elementary school student in the state is expanding this month with the addition of 12 schools.

One Laptop per Child /South Carolina is a partnership between the nonprofit Palmetto Project, Blue Cross Blue Shield and the State Department of Education.  State Superintendent Jim Rex and Steve Skardon of the Palmetto Project accepted a $500,000 donation today from Blue Cross Blue Shield division president and COO David Pankau to help fund the expansion.

The laptop program was piloted last year in rural Marion School District 7.  That rollout has been highly successful, garnering positive response from students, parents and the community.  School officials expect test results at the end of the year to show students are performing better since technology has been integrated into teaching and learning.

To read the latest news about the South Carolina deployment, see their website at http://www.laptopsc.org.

G1G1 International Update

The first round of international Give One, Get One orders have been shipped out — every order placed before December 16 should have arrived by now, in time for Christmas.  Some were sent from Miami, and the European orders went out from Brussels with EU adapters and a special G1G1 Europe thank-you note.

Orders between now and December 31 should ship out by mid-January.  We are able to ship to all of the 45 countries mentioned in the original announcement, and are investigating and adding more countries as there is specific interest.  If you want to send laptops to a country not currently on our list, leave a comment here, and I will see what we can do.

Barring an extension, International G1G1 will end on December 31st.  Be sure to place your orders now if you are interested.

It currently still appears that one is preordering on Amazon, and that the XO is “available January 15” — that means that orders made now will be shipped by Jan 15 or else refunded.  This is the way information is sent to us for fulfillment – a compromise we have made to cover countries everywhere, since AMZN was only able to handle shipping within the US.  Donors in a few specific countries (Australia, Hong Kong, France) can choose to take part in G1G1 directly through a local site, as a tax-deductable donation.

Continue reading