One laptop per child Birmingham: case study of a radical experiment

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) program has sought to transform education by developing and distributing to low-income children around the world an inexpensive computer with an in- novative interface and applications. This article investigates the implementation of OLPC in Birmingham, Alabama, where some 15,000 of the group’s XO laptops were distributed to all first- through fifth-grade public school students andtheirteachers. Surveys were collected from a representative sample of children before and af- ter they received their laptops, supplemented by observations and interviews in a Birmingham school. The use of the XOs by teachers and schools, the ways social and technical infra- structure affected program implementation, and the types of XO use by students are examined. The disappointing results of the Birmingham program, which has been discontinued, are an- alyzed in relationship to OLPC’s technocentric approach, the organization’s principle of child ownership, and the design elements of the XO hardware and software.&nbsp