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Letizia Jaccheri: Christmas card from Sydney (11.3.09, 08:52)

This year, I get my Christmas cards in late February as they were forwarded from Trondheim to Sydney. This was somehow normal, since some of my neighbors had not yet removed their Santa Claus and Christmas decorations from the tropical trees in the gardens. Among the cards, I particularly appreciated the one from NTNU and the present we get as NTNU employees. NTNU has given 100 laptops (called XO's) to OLPC.

This makes me happy as it confirms my visions, both personal and scientific, about the importance of open source software, not only as a set of technological tools, but also as a powerful cultural instrument. I have searched google for “laptop per child NTNU” and I have found the home page of my own project artentnu.com, which is good, but I was looking for more information about the destiny of these 100 laptops.

My students in my Expert in Team village (which I run five times since 2004) have several times suggested to work with OLPC but for some reasons I never had the energy to investigate how to get involved in the project. Motivated by the NTNU present and by the atmosphere at the Creative and Cognition Studios at Sydney University of Technology which gives importance to the creative work as well as to the scientific, I decided to acquire one OLPX laptop. My goal is to be able to evaluate it and see possible creative and scientific paths in the projects. Unfortunately I get the answer that XOs are no longer directly available for sale. What to do? Does anybody at NTNU have an XO? How can we be involved in the project and follow up the evaluation of the effects of our own Christmas presents?

The Australian Autumn is starting, nights are getting longer and the last Christmas decorations are removed. This reminds me my Norwegian colleagues are thinking of Easter holidays and the oranges in the sun and they will believe it is strange that an Italian woman in Australia thinks of the Norwegian Christmas presents.

Letizia Jaccheri

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