Scott's Blog

I just discovered Google Notebook that I knew existed but had never tried it, I heard it referred to as a post-it note type tool, but it's more useful than that (I'm not a big Post-it™ fan). If you install the extension, you can quickly select and gather snippets from a web page and throw it in your notebook . It automatically keeps track of the originating link and the date you clipped it. The notebook supports rich text and images, in that sense it's quite complete. The only thing missing is the ability to take an entire notebook and make a blog entry for it. Maybe I could make it my 20% project .

Professor José Antonio Meira da Rocha has done some number crunching and found that the OLPC XO laptop will cost about R$0.59 per child per hour (about 27 cents US). This includes the cost of the laptop, electricity, training, OLPC servers, and internet connection. In comparison having Computer labs where 5 or more students share one computer would cost R$9.90 per hour. His numbers show that the total cost of ownership (TCO) OLPC will be R$94.07 per year (vs. a computer lab's TCO of $R586.00). The problem with computer labs is that the child doesn't feel any ownership of the shared computer, he or she can't just pick it up any time and start using it. Also kids don't like sitting in chairs for hours at a time. On top of that the OLPC has a better display than a typical computer and so is better for reading. Having just spent R$300.00 on books, pencils and paper for my son for school this year, $94.07 looks like a steal.