ITWire

Barrie added that teachers and teacher aides had taken part in Vacation Institutes at the University of the Sunshine Coast, with a focus in literacy, numeracy and the XO laptop. "This program is ongoing and is supported by University staff who visit our school and community on a regular basis to support ICT integration in literacy and numeracy," he said.

"In 2012, the University commenced a small pilot study to understand what is happening at Doomadgee, with the question 'what works'  at the top of their list. This tertiary partnership was extended to further schools in April 2012. But your question about empirical evidence will have wait until 2013 when the University study is completed."

It looks like his claims are a bit premature as well.

OLPC Australia has six staff, all of whom are paid by the project; this is no charity, this is a non-profit. In the US, those who lead the two organisations that look after OLPC are well paid. In Australia, since there is no requirement that non-profits file anything with the government, one cannot pinpoint how much the head of OLPC Australia is paid.

The laptops consume funds from governments and donors, among them the Commonwealth Bank, funds that could well be used to support traditional methods of education that have proved to be useful over decades, if not centuries.

People seem to be oblivious to the fact that the children who are guinea pigs in the OLPC program, especially those from poorer areas, are the most vulnerable individuals in society.

OLPC Australia appears unwilling to stop and consider that it could well be eating up valuable years of a child's most important developmental years with experiments in constructionist learning that have no scientific basis at all.

We lament aplenty when reports of children being taken advantage of appear in the media. With OLPC, we don't make the connection. Or maybe we just couldn't care.