I have applied for a loan of 10 XO laptops. Our STARS students would like to develop software for girls in rural Haiti. The girls want to learn to type and want to learn English. For more information on STARS see http://www.starsalliance.org.
We will also add XO laptops to our lending library. Schools can borrow items from our lending library for up to 3 weeks at a time. We currently loan out LEGO WeDO, LEGO NXT, PicoCrickets, Pleo robots, Finch Robots, and Cell Phones. See http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/1989 for information on our lending libraries.
Research shows that girls and under-represented minorities are interested in using computing to help others. I think this project will help attract more females and under-represented minorities to careers in computing.
We will also add a category to our Scratch Competition for high school students to encourage them to create educational animations and/or games for students using the XO laptops. See http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/ice-gt/1489 for information on our Scratch competitions.
Barb Ericson's Blog 