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Showing posts from April, 2008

The affordable "digital pencils"

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Thirty years after I first took my first personal computers from Commodore (the PET), Radio Shack (TRS-80) and Apple (the Apple II) into my elementary classrooms in Wisconsin, we are almost there, finally close to realizing the dream of a new public school curriculum built on the metaphorical digital pencil (e.g.,  affordable , networked, every child has one in the classroom, personal computer). For example of price movement in the right direction, see  EB's simple MIMD prototype  to the left or explore Gillette's excellent chart comparing the current leading  low cost laptop computers , which does not include the Elonex One  (100 UK), Northec Gecko  ($300 and up), or the more than 25 new Intel Atom processor devices ($250-$350)  coming soon. It took the recent threat of Nicholas Negroponte's $100 XO laptop vision for the computer industry to "get religion" on the topic of functional ubiquitous child-priced computers. The industry then shifted close to panic this