Lightning in a Bottle

John Kelly from ESD 123 alerted me to Pop!Tech, another cool online conference that’s starting Wednesday, October 17. The theme is The Impact of Technology, and while the actual conference itself is in Camden, Maine, all of the sessions are being broadcast live on the Internet. Many of the previous sessions are available to be viewed online or downloaded. The topics are varied, wide-ranging, and very interesting.

And don’t forget that the K-12 Online Conference is under way!

David Pogue of the New York Times has posted both a written and video review of the XO Computer from the One Laptop Per Child project. Originally called the “$100 laptop”, the device is currently costing $188. The review, however, does a great job of pointing out what a truly revolutionary device it is, and it incorporates many technologies that aren’t available in any other device.

It also illustrates the value of shooting for improbable goals. Nicholas Negroponte has been the target of an enormous amount of criticism and derision for trying to create a $100 laptop. Even now, many are making quite a bit out of the fact that they didn’t hit their target price, and it’s almost twice what they had shot for. However, creating such an incredibly capable machine for $188 would have seemed just as improbable a goal four years ago, and it is a far more sophisticated device than I think anyone would have imagined. I think the XO computer and the technologies it incorporates have the potential to change the face of computing, thanks to the determination of a community of people to reach an improbable goal for the benefit of children.

This October will see the second K12 Online Conference, a free conference on educational technology that takes place entirely online. It is made up of several dozen podcast presentations that are released four or five a day over two weeks, with several live “Fireside Chats” to interact in real time with featured presenters. The peripatetic David Warlick is the keynote speaker again this year, and I assume it will be just as good or better than his presentation last year. I think this is a very intriguing model and I’m trying to figure out how to try something like it here.

I do have one concern, however. If I go to a regular conference, no matter how many presentations there are I can only attend one per time slot, so there is a maximum amount of information I can attempt to absorb. I simply can’t go to every session, which is probably better for my brain. However, in this model, every darn session is available to me! I haven’t got the time to view them all, so I still have to prioritize. It’s just harder!