D30Learn

More than 50 new tablet computers are expected to debut at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. But only one is meant for people in the poorest regions of the world, and comes with a hand crank as an accessory. Known as the XO 3.0, the rugged green and white device has an eight-inch screen and was designed by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, which in 2008 launched the XO laptop, a device for people who are normally far from the minds of most computing companies. At a press preview held before the official opening of CES on Tuesday, OLPC's chief technology officer, Edward McNierney, told Technology Review that the new device could be used by children as young as five. "We're trying to provide a low-power, low-cost environment for education," he said. "One of the things we're working on now is software experiments to see if children in completely illiterate communities, who don't go to school, can teach themselves to read."

"It requires a totally different skill set on the teacher's part," Stutzman says. "We have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, because we don't know the exact direction that a class will go when we walk in. Depending on student questions, reflections, or activities, our plans could quickly morph into something we never dreamed would happen at the outset." In other words, it's risk and reward. "It's scary not to know exactly where your students will go if their curriculums are potentially different, and it requires a lot of adjusting," Stutzman explains. "But the benefit is that students get to see our genuine reactions to new discoveries as well as to challenges, and they see us model the learning process together." Students understand that there is no one "right" answer that the teacher expects, that there are many answers, and that the teacher and students will likely discover many of these together.

What I wonder is whether his classrooms and teachers can help him become a passionate, patient, connected learner who is empowered to truly learn whatever and whenever he needs to.