OLPC XO - LAMS 2

One Laptop Per Child and LAMS

The Boss has recently got an [OLPC XO] laptop. If you haven't heard about this before, these are the laptops that they are shipping to third world countries to improve the lives of lots and lots of kids thru education (see the NYTimes review). And of course, we had to try it with LAMS.

The XO comes with Sugar as it's main operation platform which might take a while if you are used to other operating systems, but kids can figure it out in seconds (unlike me!) So we embarked to test LAMS 2.1 on it and here are the results.

The XO has a gecko based browser (which is the same web rendering engine as firefox). So LAMS would work without major issues if you are using the new Flashless interface as you can see in the pictures. You also can use Flash with the XOs (see the Full Flash pictures) using a customized version of Opera for the XO's. You can find the instructions to install Opera and Flash on the XO on the laptop.org website (see the particular version of Flash you need to use for Opera though.

LAMS on OLPC XOs
(view as slideshow)

'No-flash' works here as well, and fits in nicely with the default browser theme... ... loads OK from this angle as well... Learner environment loads just fine. LAMS gives a browser warning, but we should be OK.

'My Groups' screen loads just fine. Another sequence shot. A sequence in 'no-flash' learning environment. This looks really neat. Progress window in 'no-flash' learner.

Tested on March 20, 2008

OLPC with Opera and Flash Player

There's a special version of Opera for OLPC that also supports Above Flash Player. If you add these two, then you can use LAMS with all its interfaces. So teachers and tutors can use LAMS at full!

Full LAMS on OLPC XOs
(view as slideshow)

Sequence tab is OK. Monitoring environment is just fine. Authoring a sequence. 'My Groups' page loads OK.

Authoring canvas loaded OK. Learner environment loads with full Flash. Learner tab in Monitoring.

Tested on March 20, 2008