About the Laptop
The goal of the One Laptop Per Child/South Carolina is to provide a laptop computer to all elementary students in our state and give them the confidence to do great things in their lives. We want our students to explore, experiment, and express themselves in ways that will ignite their imagination, accelerate their education, and inspire a new passion for learning.
The education laptop we are providing students in South Carolina was developed by Nicholas Negroponte, along with a core of veterans at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Media Lab. The group quickly expanded to include a wide range of exceptionally talented and dedicated people from academia, industry, the arts, business, and the open-source community. Each individual involved brought a unique skill set and a deep personal passion to the project.
The project’s origins go back more than four decades to the early days of computing, when most machines were still the size of small dinosaurs, and almost no one dreamed they would ever be suitable for children. But pioneering thinkers disagreed sharply, and over time led the long march from radical theory to reality proving the immense power of the personal computer as a learning tool for children.
Read more about the history of the laptop.
Negroponte’s laptop is a distinctive machine; rugged, durable, and child-friendly, inside and out. It has a user interface that graphically embraces the spirit of the network. It is all about community and collaboration—working and playing together to learn, create and communicate.
We want the child to interact with the laptop on as deep a level as he or she desires. Children program the machine, not the other way around. They will find amazing capabilities, all of which will expand their knowledge and enhance their learning skills. They can draw pictures, compose music, and make movies, as well as read and listen to books, collaborate on classroom projects, and keep personal journals.
