A teacher at Villa Cardal's public school shows off the work by one of her young students on a Ceibal program laptop.

A Villa Cardal school teacher checks the work of her students on one of the Ceibal program laptops.

Ambassador and Mrs. Baxter congratulate Villa Cardal school director Miguel Galain for his efforts to implement the Ceibal program, and present him with a book on their home state of California.

Third graders’ aptitude with their laptop computers was evidence to U.S. Ambassador Frank E. Baxter that Uruguay’s One Laptop Per Child Program has gotten off to a successful start at Public School No.24 located in the town of Villa Cardal, a rural community of just over 1200 people in the department of Florida.

The ambassador visited the primary school on Sept. 28 to observe the program, also known as Plan Ceibal (Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea), which aims to provide every Uruguayan student with a wireless laptop computer that he or she may use in the classroom and at home.

Students at the school demonstrated their computer skills to ambassador and Mrs. Baxter, showing them how to surf the Internet, play games and record videos with their lightweight plastic computers.

“Students are the future of Florida, Uruguay and the world, and education makes the biggest difference. My obsession is to make sure that young people are prepared for the 21st century,” Baxter said of his enthusiasm for the department’s efforts to become a digital center in Uruguay.

Uruguay is one of the first countries to begin implementation of the One Laptop Per Child program, and Villa Cardal's school was the first one in Uruguay to receive the computers. The Uruguayan government plans to eventually purchase laptops for 400,000 primary school students and set up wireless internet networks for each school system in the country.

During his visit to Florida, ambassador Baxter congratulated the school's director, Miguel Galain, for his efforts to implement the Ceibal program. Also present was Miguel Brechner, director of Uruguay’s Technological Laboratories (LATU), the national research institution that brought the laptop program to the country.

Endorsed by the United Nations as a tool for improving developing countries’ access to global education, the One Laptop Per Child program was officially launched by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte in 2006. Uruguay agreed in December 2006 to participate in the program, and the department of Florida implemented its pilot program this year with 200 computers.

The “XO” laptops were designed by technicians in the United States at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and manufactured by Quanta Computer Inc. Microsoft Corp. is considering installing a Microsoft Windows platform in computers to be used by older students in a later phase of the project, but the computers currently use a Linux open-source operating system. In addition to the XO laptops, Uruguay may also purchase other inexpensive computers such as Intel Corp.’s Classmate PCs for the Ceibal program.

Leigh Miller
Staff Writer / GlobalAtlanta.com

Ambassador Baxter listens attentively as a student explains how his Ceibal program laptop works.

Ambassador Baxter chats with students about their Ceibal program laptops. The school has 200 One Laptop Per Child computers.

A student shows how she found the U.S. Embassy's website with her Plan Ceibal One Laptop Per Child computer.		These Villa Cardal students check out the U.S. Embassy's website as they surf the Net with their Plan Ceibal One Laptop Per Child computer.

 
###