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Not-for-profit organisation OLPC Australia's new program, One Education, has now distributed 20,000 computing devices to schools throughout Australia, with a celebration held last week at a school where every student and teacher has a device.
The laptop-tablet hybrid, dubbed the XO-duo, was developed at MIT, and designed specifically for use by schoolchildren around the globe. They ordinarily cost AU$400 per machine, but schools with an Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) value (PDF) of less than 1,000 can purchase the devices for AU$100 each. The other AU$300 is funded by the Australian Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and by contributions from OLPC Australia's corporate sponsors, including the Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, Oracle, and Salesforce. The AU$100 also pays for the training, software, charging racks, spare parts, and shipping to deliver the devices to schools.
The ruggedised all-in-ones run Linux and have a touchscreen that can be rotated 360 degrees, with ports on the side for HDMI out and Bluetooth 2.0. The learning software has programs for mathematics, art, reading, and creative thinking.
In the US, OLPC made its XO Learning Tablet (without the laptop capabilities) available for purchase from Walmart for $149 in August.
Caption by: Corinne Reichert
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