I would second Andre's assessment. It just may have been one of the best keynotes of any PyCon, whatever you think of OLPC. And I think most people in the room ended up with a pretty positive feeling for what the OLPC folks want to do.
Vern Andre Roberge wrote: > I just attended a great talk on OLPC. I thought I should share my > first reactions with folks not fortunate enough to be able to attend. > > BTW, if anyone feels this is a bit of an abuse of this list, feel free > to let me know (I won't be offended). I recognize that these are not > well polished notes and perhaps should rather find their way on my > blog. > > > The first part was about school and learning - great stuff. Goal: > changing the way kids learn (no mention as this point about laptops). > Art would have been pleasantly surprised. This was done in a > "non-preachy" way, unlike the way some home-schooling advocates > present their stuff. (no offense meant to anyone on this list). > > A big chunk of the talk dealt with technical/hardware issues - all > done in a very relevant way, but not exactly relevant for edu-sig. > > Some excellent reasons were given as to why Python was chosen as *the* > development language. There is actually a button on the keyboard > which is meant to "display the source"; click on it and you're > presented with the actual Python source code used to run the > application being viewed/used. The user can then modify the source > (like smalltalk I guess, like Paul F. [?] sometimes mentions on this > list) and run the modified version. > > One open issue (as I understand it) is that of finding the "best > practice" for plugins. The idea is that the core programs should be > as small as possible but easy to extend via plugins. I thought that > there already was a "well known and best way" to design plugins - and > it was on my list of things to learn about (to eventually incorporate > rurple within crunchy). > > There is a real need to have more people involved in the development. > This project presents a real opportunity to "make a real difference" > to a lot of kids out there. > > Overall, I was extremely impressed with the talk - it was a job well > done and a fantastic start to the conference. > > André > _______________________________________________ > Edu-sig mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
