Gaming the System

What will millions of poor children do with cheap laptop computers? Play games, of course. But not just any games.

The vaunted “$100 laptop” already being distributed in some countries by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child program lacks the horsepower to run flashy 3-D games like Grand Theft Auto or World of Warcraft. Besides, the idea of the nonprofit is to educate as well as entertain.

Game jam coordinator Mel Chua said it’s just the first of several such gatherings to produce useful software and content for the XO laptop. “We’re hoping to have music jams, movie jams, curriculum jams,” Chua said.

The software jams won’t be confined to the United States. SJ Klein One Laptop Per Child’s director of content, hopes the Needham game jam will serve as a model for software developers around the world. “We’re trying to formalize this as an idea that anybody else can easily run,” said Klein.

from the Boston Globe

If we know SJ, he’s going to make sure that these babies come loaded with the capacity to allow a group of 12-year-olds, transported to a virgin planet with nothing but natural resources, to completely recreate modern civilization, only better, and to have a blast doing it.

We are particularly encouraged by the fleeting mention of “Curriculum Jams”. All over the world, every day, creative tech-savvy teachers are creating content, on line and off, which they would be more than willing to share, given a channel and a chance to contribute.

We will be on the lookout for further updates.