The Lab for Technological Literacy at Rochester Institute of Technology’s B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences is forming a users group to help support the One Laptop Per Child initiative.
One Laptop Per Child strives to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. Each laptop is equipped with content and software that is designed to encourage self-empowered learning.
The goal of the users group is to create software and other applications that can be used on the laptops. Community members are encouraged to participate. Meetings take place at 7 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of every month in the Golisano College auditorium on the RIT campus. The first meeting is slated for Jan. 22.
“The One Laptop Per Child initiative is a way for people to have a large impact for a small amount of money,” says RIT professor and Director of the Lab for Technological Literacy Stephen Jacobs.
Jacobs has purchased three laptops thus far, joining other professors and students who have contributed to the cause. Nortel’s LearnIT Foundation will be donating another to the lab for a related class in the spring.
For more information on the One Laptop Per Child initiative, visit www.laptop.org.