A child's view of the $100 laptop 13 Dec 2007

The BBC published another article on the OLPC laptop today - and it makes an interesting counterpoint to the article we wrote about yesterday. It's written by Rory Cellan-Jones and describes his son Rufus's experiences in test-driving the new machine (Rufus is nine years old):

"So Rufus is using his laptop to write, paint, make music, explore the internet, and talk to children from other countries.

"Because it looks rather like a simple plastic toy, I had thought it might suffer the same fate as the radio-controlled dinosaur or the roller-skates he got last Christmas - enjoyed for a day or two, then ignored.

"Instead, it seems to provide enduring fascination.

"I had returned from Nigeria not entirely convinced that the XO laptop was quite as wonderful an educational tool as its creators claimed.

"I felt that a lot of effort would be needed by hard-pressed teachers before it became more than just a distracting toy for the children to mess around with in class.

"But Rufus has changed my mind.

"With no help from his Dad, he has learned far more about computers than he knew a couple of weeks ago, and the XO appears to be a more creative tool than the games consoles which occupy rather too much of his time."

...Interesting stuff...but you have to remember that a tech-savvy nine-year-old boy from England is not the target market for this product. I wonder how closely Rufus's experience / background / behaviour matches that of your average nine-year-old from Nigeria or Uruguay (?)