Caryl, I agree with you on this. I think, with Sugar (both with and without the XOs) we have a powerful set of tools for both independent learning and cooperative learning. Every day, I found myself challenged to help our 5th grade teachers made their curricula come alive in brand new ways with these tools. Gerald <div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Caryl Bigenho <<a href="mailto:cbigenho@hotmail.com">cbigenho@hotmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div> Hi All, I am seeing more and more folks who want free XOs to teach children "IT skills" and "computer skills". I think we need to somehow re-emphasize the value of the XO as a learning tool for subject matter related to the school curriculum and meta learning. The Sugar software is such an important part of this. All the other features of Sugar and the XO-1, which allow the programs to integrate and and allow project based, collaborative learning, are important as well. There are other low-cost laptops that don't do all the wonderful things the XO does that would work just as well for learning IT or computer skills. If that is all they are interested in, perhaps they should look elsewhere. Caryl (aka Grumpy Grannie) </div> _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a> </blockquote></div>