How to Choose a Student Laptop

Lots of parents are interested in looking at laptop/notebook computers for their chidren, and I do have my opinions but will defer to another source instead of making things up from scratch. Look at How To Choose The Best Student Laptop? By Titus Hoskins and then go look at bizwaremagic.com's comparison of 6 top brands and models.

Another thing you might consider is the new array of subnotebooks, offshoots of the "100 Dollar Laptop" development. I'm particularly intrigued by the Asus EEE PC. See a detailed comparison of currently available ones at ITReviews from Merry Olde England.

My general advice for parents is to purchase a notebook with the fastest processor, the most RAM, and the devices you know you will need. DVD player? Integrated webcam? These are decisions each family needs to make for themselves. With a student laptop, I believe weight is also an important factor. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll be moving to completely digital textbooks any time in the near future: The textbook lobby is too powerful. 1 or 2 pounds saved in the backpack can help the already overloaded child.

Best of luck in your shopping!

Cape Town Open Education Declaration--Revolutionary!

Checking my Twitter this morning, I was directed to a "2cents Worth" blogpost by David Warlick in which he promotes the recent "Cape Town Open Education Declaration," an outgrowth of "a small but lively meeting convened in Cape Town in September 2007. The aim of this meeting was to accelerate efforts to promote open resources, technology and teaching practices in education."

I took the time to read the Declaration, and I hope that you will too. If you are an educator who is reading my blog, I'd dare say you'll be heading on over to the "Sign the Declaration" page and joining the (as of my signature's addition) 687 educators and organizations who have signed. I truly believe that this document provides the best statement of purpose for the myriad interests that become a passion for me. I'm always saying "it's all about the shareshare" for me. The Declaration sums up the reasons I have for that philosophy, and does so in ways I have as yet been unable to articulate.

I'm running 9 ways to Sunday here at work this morning, but I do want to share some of the examples the website offers as open education initiatives already in place. Do any of these interest you? If so, check them out.

CC Learn
Centre for Open and Sustainable Learning
Connexions
Curriki
Learning Activity Management System (LAMS)
OER Commons
Free High School Science Texts
Moodle
MIT Open Courseware
Open Courseware Consortium
WikiEducator

Finally, I'd like to propose a revolutionary notion: Any institution not actively and intentionally contributing to Open Education is well liable to be left behind in the none too distant future. I sugggest that educational organizations officialize an "Open Learning Policy," with a director (or whateveryoumaycallit0 facilitating its development. Last one in the pool is a rotten egg...

[Later] Looks like the state of Florida wants to swim! Read Florida adopts open-content reading platform State officials add FreeReading.net to their approved list of reading curriculum resources from eSchool News!

XO Laptop Musings

Despite my spotty rep as a technology wiz (I know several certified wizzes, one who is actually named "Wiz," and I can't hold a candle to any of 'em), I'm feeling like a nOOb supreme each time I fire up the "buy two get one" XO laptop (pic courtesy eweek.com) that fell into my hands like a gift from the heavens today. I've turned it on three times now, a lot considering how busy my lab was today, with K-4 students blogging about their winter holidays!

I am cheered by my son's response to the machine--clearly it's attractive, and in the middle of his 6th grade homework hell (don't get me started) when I was showing it to him and said that I didn't know how to do a particular task on it, he said, "I'll find it..."

That's what we want, and what we strive for, ya'll. Empowered, curious, challenged-by-a-challenge young students who confident in the face of confusion (not buried-in-map-coloring-homework-and-redundant-math-drill frustrated ones). Something tells me there's to be more confusion in our world, sooner than later, and the better and more adaptable our children are at flexible learning, the better.

Why did I start this post? Oh, yeah, it was to shareshare a brief article about early OLPC deployment in Uruguay. You must read it! Now, let me jerk your head around a bit. Take a gander at this Business Week article on Intel's dumping of the project, posted only 6 hours ago... It's certainly not a simple concept, that Negroponte quest...

I'm sooooo glad to have one in hand, though, and thanks to my Tech Director, Kathy Wieczerza, or 'Wiz,' for supporting this team exploration of the XO laptop!

(4)Hundred Dollar Laptops to be Sold in US for Two Weeks Only

eSchoolNews reported today that the much-media'ed "Hundred Dollar Laptop," the product of Nicholas Negroponte's long crusade to level the global computing playing field, will be sold in the US for a two week period in November, ONLY.

Negroponte, as we know, is famed for thinking out of the box, some would say, "off the planet." I much admire this strategy, which offers the US public to purchase the $188 retail machine, running a souped-down Linux operating system, sporting built-in wireless, and chargeable with a hand-crank, for 400 dollars. The additional revenue from each sale will be applied to the purchase of one of the little laptops for a child in a third world country.

All the details are at the eSchoolNews article and I highly recommend the read. Now who's gonna pop me 400 bucks so I can buy one of these things!? If nothing else, it can keep my Kaypro 2x machine company as a collector's item. And, hey, that little 64K, 5 1/4 inch dual floppy driven machine cost me two grand! Moore was right!

There's a great pic of the device here!