Infrastructures for low-cost laptop use in Mexican schools

In recent years, a number of low-cost laptops have been created for children's education, most notably the XO, developed by One Laptop per Child to embody principles of constructionist learning, and the ClassmatePC, designed by Intel to fit within and improve traditional education. We report on a series of field studies in Mexican elementary schools that deployed the XO or ClassmatePC. Although both devices are promoted as valuable for improving education in developing countries, our studies suggest that creating the social and technical infrastructures needed to sustain school laptop use is far more complex than what technology designers assume.