I have previously discussed the XO's hardware, as well as its multimedia and web activities. The XO has several tutorial activities that can be used in a fairly productive (read 'useful') way.

I have been looking at the XO activities beyond the browser, chat and multimedia activities. Namely, students can create drawings, audio recordings, tinker with programming and use a calculator. Actually, I'm pretty impressed with the default activities. Because they are both tutorial and productive - that is, a student can see the impact of their learning efforts - children will learn far more effectively than they will through rote exercises.

I have never been a graphic artist - anything I try to do, short of the pre-drawn shapes, would take weeks to make it look nice. But the Draw activity is certainly useful for students to learn on. The TamTam activities, Jam, Edit, and Mini, offer different functionality. Children can use Jam to perform. That is, they can pick an instrument and actually play it using the keyboard. Mini is aimed at small children - and probably me, too - for the same purpose as Jam. Edit lets children create more advanced musical compositions, while the synthLab lets older children explore advanced sound design.

I think the most interesting activities are the e-Toys and Pippy, although Turtle (a Logo implementation) is also quite good. e-Toys enables children to develop their own multimedia 'programs'. By simply adjusting numbers and so on, they can manipulate objects on the screen, and how those objects behave. So children can create a car and change how it moves around the screen, as an example.

Pippy is a Python editor and interpreter. Pippy includes several sample scripts that children can edit to manipulate the program. By adjusting the numbers in one of the sound scripts, children can change the pitch range and length of the sounds. Another script gives a math story problem that can be edited to change the results. Children can learn a range of subjects in the context of programming - something I believe is hugely important today.

The Calculator is an outstanding tool for children of all ages. From simple math to algebra and trigonometry, I wish I had had such a tool when I was in high school! And students can keep their calculations for future reference. The Memorize activity might be as useful to me as to the children. Children can play the available Memory games or design their own games. If you've ever played Husker Du, you'll appreciate Memorize, which works with numbers or letters as the elements to recall.

I don't like the RSS feed reader, but it mostly works. It seems 'iffy' to me when it comes to adding new feeds. One time Blue GNU's feed was the first one it recognized. Another time, it wouldn't load our feed for anything. And yes, I did double check the URL. Maybe I need to check the documentation, but that really shouldn't be necessary in this case.

The terminal works like you normally expect Bash to work. I think some commands have been stripped, along with the man pages, but it's otherwise a normal Bash shell. The log viewer lets you view several logs related to the XO and various activities. The Analyse activity lets you check the network connections.

Finally, you can measure the distance between two XOs. This is the power of mesh networking. By having student C in between students A and B, all three students have a greater physical distance, so that A and B can see each other through C. One point behind this idea is that, although person A might not have Internet access because of a weak signal, they can gain that access through a person with another XO.

As I consider all of the activities, I am a bit envious of these young children. The XO offers them, not merely a rote learning tool, but the ability to see directly and immediately how Language, Math and Science - individually and collectively - integrate into our daily lives. All the rote math exercises in middle and high school were so boring as to practically amount to torture. I think the XOs offer an active learning tool all by themselves.

Even so, I think adding in tools like GCompris (and possibly Skills Tutor) will go a long way as well. I'll come back to these two educational tools in the near future, but I want to emphasize that the XO is a phenomenal tool for children. But that's just my opinion. I'll be catching up with some local children soon to see what they think.