DIGITAL LEARNING Goes GLOBAL

Low-cost laptop could transform learning: Forget windows, folders and boxes that pop up with text. When students in Thailand, Libya and other developing countries get their $150 computers from the One Laptop Per Child project in 2007, their experience will be unlike anything on standard PCs. For most of these children the XO machine, as it's called, likely will be the first computer they've ever used. Because the students have no expectations for what PCs should be like, the laptop's creators started from scratch in designing a user interface they figured would be intuitive for children. The result is as unusual as - but possibly even riskier than - other much-debated aspects of the machine, such as its economics and distinctive hand-pulled mechanism for charging its battery. More.