Maryanne has just returned from Ghana and has sent a group picture with the already totally loved OLPCs in hand. These are orphaned children living in the Western Heritage Children’s Home. The adults are staff designated as the OLPCs “guest/staff”. That way, educators and others can come to the Children’s Home, try them out with the help of the children, etc., and also staff can learn them and improve their own skills. There is a lot of interest on the part of the teachers in town, and others too and this is a great place for them to come and “see the goods.” The cook and cleaner (back row) are pretty much non-English and non-literate, so they are learning along with the children. They in turn share that with the youngest children.
Maryanne Ward, president of Ghana Together, recently sent me photos of her team getting the donated XOs ready for the trip to Ghana. I want to share them. It is wonderful how many were donated!
Like Julie, I have not been using my Lil XO as much as it deserves to be used. So, I, too, am passing mine on. I am giving mine to a family with four little kids, who love to play with it. Their mom is a computer tech, and they just don’t have enough computers at home to keep all of the little kids happy. At first, the mom wanted to use Lil XO to give a specific test to kids in a small rural and very isolated school. I made her promise me that she would not use Lil XO for tests - only for kids’ free discovery and play. I know those little kids will learn more just playing with it than they ever could from any test. Two of the kids, who are Pre-K, were able to do more than I within the first week!
It was great fun setting up and using the XO. However I haven’t been using it much lately and felt bad that it was spending most of its time locked in a drawer. I went searching for an organization to donate it to and found it at the OLPC web site: Ghana Together. I am sending the XO via UPS on its new adventrue. It leaves today for the Ghana Together Headquaters. I am happy that it will be used by children and won’t be neglected any longer.
The grands and I are trying to access the wifi with our ‘Lil XO- unsuccessfully. Toni, we were able to see your video, pictures, and audio. Thank you. We immediately did the same thing, and now we have some silly pix of us. However, I’m now going back to re-read all of our blog sharing, but I still can’t get our little baby to connect. We’ve tried Opera.
Thanks.
Greetings! I’m happy to say that the Vance Household, located on the lovely prairies of South Dakota, is graciously hosting Joan’s Lil’ XO. To Joan for so graciously allowing us the opportunity to experience Lil’ XO, a BIG THANKS. I myself, could not believe our good fortune when Joan called and offered me the opportunity to give the XO a test run. I’ld been following the XO since Negroponte first started dreaming. I’m the Network Administrator in the local k-12 school district and always itching to get my hands on anything new. I am totally in love with the design, the compact sturdy case with the built in handle, light weight (yet rugged), and the little feelers, as my kids refer to the antennas. Plus, I have been very impressed with the screen, especially in natural light. I was also pleased with how easily it jumped on our home wifi. However, my big clumsy hands are having a most difficult time getting comfy on the keyboard–perhaps I’m to old to learn. But, my 6 & 8 year old are in love, or at least infatuation, with Lil’ XO-there will be some heartache when Lil’ XO goes home.
While FireFox is better than Opera it has odd problems. I decided to install SeaMonkey. I’ve been using it and am much happier with its interface. Read the rest of this entry » »
Evince is a pdf reader that works well for me in Firefox. Installation is just 2 steps and Firefox uses Evince as its default pdf reader. To install Evince do:
- go to Terminal Activity
- type su -
- type yum install evince
- type exit
That’s it!
While Opera is a nice upgrade from the installed browser on ‘Lil XO I haven’t found it all that fun to use. The various menus are in tiny fonts and some settings don’t seem to stick after I’ve made changes. I decided to install Firefox. I’ve been using it and am much happier with its interface. Read the rest of this entry » »
I’ve been trying out ‘Lil XO as an ebook reader. To test ebook reading I’ve been searching for interesting ebook sites. Many ebooks are available in pdf form and can be downloaded but in my research I came across this interesting digital library site International Children’s Digital Library. ‘Lil XO had a difficult time loading the web page so I decided it was time to install Java as it was obvious the site was using java scripts. Read the rest of this entry » »