Everybody Wins!
I’ve known about One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a low-cost, connected laptop for the world’s children’s education, for awhile now. When the laptop, called XO, came out a few years back, the teacher blogs were abuzz. But I’d never seen the laptop, and didn’t know too much about the organization other than they gave away laptops to kids who might otherwise never have one.
Around Thanksgiving, Kirtsy ran a promotion called “Thanksgetting,” in which they held several giveaways in the spirit of the season. One of the giveaways was sponsored by OLPC. OLPC gave away an XO laptop to 4 lucky winners, and matched the give-away with laptops for 4 lucky kiddos. All I had to do was a leave a comment about the giveaway on Kirtsy site, plus spread the news somehow. I posted the giveaway details on my Facebook page, and tweeted about it.
Then, I forgot about it! I’ve entered so many giveaways this season and I hardly ever win anything anyway, so I put them all in the back of my mind.
This afternoon, as we drove home slowly through the snowstorm after a morning of errands, I got an e-mail saying that I had won! Exciting!! One, because, like I said, I NEVER win anything. Two, what a cool thing to win! Three, it sounds like a great organization and I’m psyched to spread the word about OLPC. (Disclaimer: Talking about OLPC on my blog is not a condition of the win. I’m just spreading the word because I think it’s a worthy organization.)
Poke around OLPC’s website and you’ll be impressed, I think, with their vision and with the technology they’ve developed. If I were still in the classroom, these laptops would be on the top of my wishlist.
My laptop is enroute. I almost feel a little guilty about winning it, because I know I’ll be totally selfish with it! The XO is definitely designed for kids but we’ll see if I let my nieces play with it…
