[Our Student Org]
Our Mission: We are an organization established to promote interest in, provide support for, and develop a local community around the One Laptop Per Child vision. We view OLPC as a valuable educational platform rooted in innovative technology. Our goals include community outreach, student development, and educational research. To this end, we have established and are growing local, national, and international relationships. Opportunities are also available to tailor projects to member initiatives. UW's OLPC student organization exists as a dynamic epicenter for communication and coordination among the OLPC community at large.
[Our Roots]
"It's an education project, not a laptop project." — Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman and Founder, One Laptop Per Child
OLPC's Mission: To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. When children have access to this type of tool they get engaged in their own education. They learn, share, create, and collaborate. They become connected to each other, to the world and to a brighter future.
[Our Current Projects]
We have our hands in quite a few cookie jars. If there's one things we're good at, it's building relationships with different people and groups. Here is a smattering of some of the things we are currently involved in.
› OLPC - We were fortunate to attend a Learning Workshop in Cambridge in Sept 2008 where we met with many of the OLPC/MIT Media Labs staff. The staff and attendees there have been excited about any community efforts to work with each other and are receptive to many of our questions and ideas.
› Sugar Labs - Sugar is the software to the XO's hardware. Breaking off from OLPC in the summer of 2008, they have continued its development so that it is usable on multiple platforms, facilitating the same OLPC constructionist education on existing computer equipment. We are working with them to establish a local sugar lab.
› Paraguay Educa - This is a multidimensional relationship formed when we met at an OLPC Learning Workshop. We are in communication with this NGO for several projects and are working toward securing funding to travel and work in Paraguay this coming spring break and over summer 2009.
› Northport/Packer - Local community learning centers with XO implementation research, education, and volunteering opportunities available. There are currently about 20 XO laptops in use between these two locations. Lesson plan/content development has been one of the most requested items from these groups.
› UW RFID Lab - We are working with staff and students from this group to design and implement tracking and management solutions for the XO laptops, specifically with applicability to the upcoming Paraguay rollout.
› XO-662 - "The goal of the XO-662 is to take the current XO-1 Laptop and create a complete hardware and software solution to improve the current accessibility features." This is a project originating in UW-Madison's School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.
› and more...
[Our Future]
You are the next step. Join up with other talented individuals in deciding where to take UWOLPC from here.
Contact us at uwolpc@gmail.com for more information, or join our facebook group.