Will Richardson brought this to my attention. Isn’t this awesome- children in a two room school 10 miles outside Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, are the first to be given a robust laptop each and instruction on how to use it to communicate with the world.

Have a look at the photos of the school and explanation of the process. In this photo the children have their first lessons in booting up their computers and getting started from Khaled Hassounah, director of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme in Africa and the Middle East.

Each computer is wirelessly internet enabled and has pre-loaded all the basic software you might need to communicate to the world.

• Firefox web browser with Google as a homepage
• Kid Pix type graphics application
• Basic word processor
• Media player
• RSS reader
• Games- Freecell, Chinese checkers etc!!
• Chat enabled

Take a minute to look at this video demonstration that shows the laptops in action and the sorts of things they are capable of. They are designed from the ground up to be collaborative.

What an incredible opportunity for giving a hand-up to cross the digital divide. We need more of this across the globe. Inspiring stuff.

Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach tagged me to…

List the top 5 to 10 things that you do almost every day that help you to be successful. They can be anything at all, but they have to be things that you do at least 4 or 5 times every week. Anything less than that may be a hobby that helps you out, but we are after the real day in and day out habits that help you to be successful.Source: Miguel Guhlin responding to Ed Tech Journeys’ Guest Blogger, Sylvia Martinez (GenYESBlog) writing on this meme by Thea Westra, Simply Successful Secrets

21st Century Collaborative

It’s a bit of an ask really and it has got me thinking about how successful or otherwise I think I am. In a nutshell, I don’t really think of myself as a particularly successful person. I tend to stumble along lurching from one disaster to another. There are some things that I am proud of that I have done and came to thinking about why they were successful. So here goes…

I love and am loved by my family and friends

When life turns to custard they can always be relied to support and agee with my point I view, even if, secretly, they disagree. This is enough to get me through the rough patches. My support crew is not huge but their contribution is immense.

I am tenacious

I worry away at a problem, I gnaw at it, leave it and come back to it, not giving up on it until I have found a ‘work around’ or it is resolved. I don’t work quickly but I usually get there in the end.

I am able to devote time to projects

I am able to spend time on things that interest me- ICT, photography, scrapbooking, paper tole, cross-stitch, whatever. I am a night-owl and rarely go to bed before midnight. I have a laptop and wireless, fast internet access in the house so am always connected and enjoy communicating/collaborating with friends I have never met face-to-face.

I have found something that I am good at

I have been teaching for quite a while and although I have had a couple of resource books on reading published, ICT has given me an audience for my talents. This encouragement from my peers gives me the impetus to do more. Success breeds success!

But then my mother says that my success is just a reflection of my upbringing! LOL

So I would like to tag

Paul Harrington

Rachel Boyd

Beth Sullivan

Tom Sheehan

Away you go guys….

I tracked this meme back to this blog that started it off on 7 March.