Tag Archives | Education

Talk About School Gadgets, Win a Half-Terabyte of Portable Storage

Posted by Harry McCracken on August 19, 2009 at 8:39 am

Seagate Free Agent Go[UPDATE: The contest is over–thanks to everyone who entered. We’ll announce a winner shortly; if you have a comment here, you’re in the drawing.]

Hey, it’s back-to-school time! I’m just glad I’m not going back to school myself, and I’m kind of amazed that it’s here already–back in the day, I don’t remember school starting until September. But we’re going to celebrate by giving away a snazzy 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go Special Edition portable USB hard drive to a lucky member of the Technologizer community. (No, you don’t need to be a student at the moment to win it.)

The drive is a $169.99 value, has a red aluminum case (as shown at left), and comes with a docking station, and is provided courtesy of Seagate. I certainly would have found it useful in college, when I stored my data on 72KB floppy disks, although I seem to remember cranking out most of my papers on an electric typewriter–at least it had a built-in correction feature.

To enter, respond to this message in the comments and tell us about the gadgets you found (or find) most essential for high school or college–and/or the ones you wish you had but didn’t (or don’t). Please fill out the e-mail address field so we can contact you if you win the FreeAgent–it won’t be displayed publicly, and we won’t use it for anything other than conveying the happy news to you. (If you’re logged in as a WordPress.com user, you won’t have to enter your e-mail address–just make sure that the address associated with your WordPress account is current.)

We’ll close this contest at 5pm PT this Friday, August 21st 2009, choose a winner at random, and notify that person by the following Monday, August 24th. If you’re shy, you can also enter by dropping us a line with your e-mail address using this form.

Your favorite gadget for classwork could be something like one of these…

Calculator

Or this…

Typewriter

Or this…

Olympus Voice Recorder

Or even this…

MacBook Pro

Or maybe it’s something weird and unexpected.

Good luck and have fun!

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OLPC Slashes Staff, Refocuses Mission

Posted by David Worthington on January 7, 2009 at 8:01 pm

olpcJust weeks after administering its “Give One, Get One” holiday season drive, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation has cut its staff by 50 percent to downsize its operational costs. But the news is not entirely grim: OLPC has announced several new technology initiatives.

In a blog posting, founder Nicholas Negroponte explained that as a non profit, OLPC is bearing the brunt of the worldwide economic downturn. It has reduced its team down to 32 people, and the remaining personnel have reduced compensation. With luck the person that produced the foundation’s creepy John Lennon ad wasn’t spared the pink slip.

Negroponte reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to its mission of providing children in developing countries with laptops. To that end it will embark on several new technology initiatives. Those include:

1. Development of Generation 2.0 of the XO laptop
2. A no-cost connectivity program
3. A million digital books
4. Passing on the development of the Sugar Operating System to the community.
5. Creating a $0 laptop to be distributed in the least developed countries.

The foundation will also change its deployment strategy, targeting Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa. Further, it is restructuring its Latin America operations into a separate support unit.

500,000 children have already received laptops, according to OLPC. Computer literacy plays a role in economic development, and the foundation’s work should continue. Let’s all hope it rides out the downturn.

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