Haugen’s Tech Tips Blog

Two of my favorite sites for families struggling with learning disabilities are closing. On September 21, Charles and Helen Schwab announced they will no longer maintain operation of their web sites, SchwabLearning.org and Sparktop.org. Instead they will focus on selective grant-making to other organizations.
I am grateful for the wonderful work that the Schwabs have done and their contributions toward greater understanding of and success for students with learning disabilities. I trust their change in focus will continue to allow them to make significant contributions in this arena.
In the meantime, let’s hope that the Schwabs can make good on their efforts to make their significant resources available through other organizations.

I blogged before about One Laptop Per Child’s Give 1 Get 1 program. Kudos to David Pogue of the New York Times for putting the promotion in such a clear light, and for his review of the new laptop’s features, limitations and capabilities.
My son and I were talking today about whether or not this might be what we do for our holiday giving this year: something for our family, something for others. Having traveled in rural parts of West Africa, South America and Indonesia, my eleven-year-old knows more than most about the people these laptops were designed for. We like the idea of making a connection in this way…
So about that laptop…

• A pull-string battery charger will give 10 minutes use for every 1 minute of tugging – or purchase the $12 solar charger. In unelectrified regions, this is a boon! (Never mind that the battery is good for 2,000 charges and only costs $10)
• A novel screen technology runs in either a crisp backlit color, or a super-low consumption black on gray mode that even works in broad daylight
• With its new ‘mesh networking,’ all XO laptops in range of one another can share documents and more, including a single internet connection. Shares are seen as a color-coded ‘map’ of users, who can, at the click of a button, share any project they’re working on. The mesh network also enables sharing software updates and more
• Features? Web browsing, word processing, calculator, pdf reader (for textbooks, etc.), a few games, a few music programs, paint program, chat and more. Not only that, kids can look under the hood right at the programming language involved and tinker with it – with a one-button restore option.

And the most underrated opportunity? The chance to leap-frog right over the limitations and expense of print as the means of obtaining and maintaining access to information in developing areas. $200 may seem ‘expensive’ from the perspective of a rural underresourced school, but when it connects students (in a two-way conversation) with a world of schools, libraries, audio, video and more, it becomes, as the worn out ad says, ‘priceless.’

Here’s a new way to have it all and give it away at the same time. Share this with grandparents and other generous gift givers.

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1
Get 1 Program for a brief window of time. For $399, you will be
purchasing two XO laptops—one that will be sent to empower a
child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to
your child at home.

The goal of One Laptop Per Child is “To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves.” They have developed a laptop that is “rugged, durable and child-friendly, inside and out,” specifically for the world’s poorest children in the most remote areas. It consumes very little power, is rechargeable by human power, contains its own wireless router for connectivity, runs on free open-source software with web browsing, multimedia, wiki journaling, presentation tools and more, and has a unique and new interface focused on activities and community rather than specific software or documents.
Of course, the Give 1, Get 1 program is not the only option. Your gift of $200 will pay for and deliver an XO laptop to a child in a developing nation.

Apple has announced a long awaited upgrade to Pages and Keynote, adding Numbers as well to the iWork suite.
http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/#overview

SchwabLearning.org and Don Johnston Inc. have launched a summer read-a-long with a Start-to-Finish rewrite of Tom Sawyer, including both pdf’s of the book and MP3 audio files. In addition, they are offering a 20% discount on select Start-to-Finish books, and a sweepstakes for a collection of adventure titles from Start-to-Finish (ends June 30, 2007).
Start-to-Finish books are a unique combination of carefully constructed “considerate” text, especially for struggling readers, along with carefully selected illustrations, and print, audio and CD-ROM versions of each book.