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'Thinking About Thinking' and One Laptop Per Child

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Students in Ulaanbaatar checking collaborating on an XO laptop. Photo: one laptop per child/flickr.com.
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Students in Ulaanbaatar checking collaborating on an XO laptop. Photo: one laptop per child/flickr.com.

MUMBAI, August 4, 2008 – Professor Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit association, discussed the pathbreaking XO-laptop, which is widely seen as having the potential to revolutionize primary education around the world.

The XO-laptop was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, from which Negroponte is currently on leave, and of which he was co-founder and director. In conversation with David Cavallo, Vice President for Learning at OLPC and the co-head of the MIT Media Lab's Future of Learning group, Negroponte discussed One Laptop Per Child's (OLPC) efforts to provide high-quality education for all as an essential stepping-stone to building fair, equitable, economically and socially viable societies.

In the accompanying video excerpt from the discussion, Negroponte argues that children who write computer programs are engaged in "thinking about thinking," in contrast to the rote learning often offered in schools.

Reported by Angeline Thangaperakasam, Asia Society India Centre


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