Core Principles

Deploying 400,000 XO laptops is no simple task. We need to build an industry centred on classroom education innovation. This industry must involve communities, education departments, universities and the teachers themselves.

We have seven core principles that guide our approach to delivering XO laptops.

Child Ownership

The child is the custodian of the laptop. It is theirs to use at school and at home. Personal ownership of the XO brings about a new sense of duty and responsibility in protecting, caring for, and sharing this valuable equipment.

Low Ages

The XO is designed for children aged 4 to 15 inclusive; however nothing precludes its use earlier or later in life.

Saturation

The XO is deployed on the basis of one laptop for each child in a class, grade, school or community.

Connection

The XO has been designed to provide the most engaging wireless network available. The laptops are connected to each other, even when they are switched off. The connectivity will be as ubiquitous as the formal or informal learning environment permits. We are proposing a new kind of school; an "expanded school" which grows well beyond the walls of the classroom, encompassing varying generations, languages and cultures.

Free and Open Source

By providing children with XO laptops, we endeavour to create a paradigm shift from kids as passive consumers of knowledge, to that of active participants in learning. As the children grow and pursue new ideas, so too should the software, content, resources, and tools expand.This requires a free and open framework that supports and encourages the very basic human need to express.

The XO has been designed to be disassembled and re-assembled by children and is even supplied with spare screws. Think of the possibilities of local communities being able to support the XO themselves.

Empowering Teachers

A commitment to creating an environment that engages teachers as much as students is crucial to ensuring the ongoing educational benefit to students. Empowered teachers will be more inclined to take full advantage of the XOs to engage their students. This means working with the custodians of today's teachers – education departments and of tomorrow's teachers – universities.

Community Engagement

We believe that both Indigenous and Western ways of learning are equally important, and understand that children receive a great deal of their education in the home and community context. By consulting respectfully with local Elders, working closely with the community and grass-roots partners, and providing laptops to the community as well as to the children, we provide a flexible learning platform that parents and other interested community members can use to engage in innovate ways to help bridge the transfer of knowledge between generations.