While listening to the Transforming Education Panel at the Microsoft ICT for Development Conference, I was struck by how much this conference is a direct result of the hype around One Laptop Per Child.
If it wasn't for Nicholas Negroponte's vision for a whole new technology application, low-cost laptops for education, I doubt that Microsoft would be courting the development community so intensely or expanded its Unlimited Potential program. It sure would not have extended Windows XP's working lifespan.
On a larger scale, OLPC has transformed the computer-manufacturing field. With the XO laptop, OLPC pioneered a whole new class of technology, 4P Computing, that is now a highly contested market space where the once-obscure Asus has become dominant.
But enough about the technology impact of OLPC. What about its educational impact?
If OLPC was once an education project, not a technology project, what are the real-world examples where it has changed classroom curriculums? Or the educational pedagogy in which the curriculum operates? Outside of Peru or Uruguay, has OLPC achieved its original mission?
OLPC is not at heart a technology program and the XO is not a product in any conventional sense of the word. We are non-profit: constructionism is our goal; XO is our means of getting there.So has OLPC changed the educational paradigm and achieved constructionism on a large scale? Or did OLPC succeed in transform computing only to fail in revolutionizing education?