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How does “a 50 dollar computer” sounds? It is not a concept but a the cheapest computer in the world that will be made available soon in Latin America. It is developed at Stanford University's School of Education and Innovations for Learning and will be marketed under the name Teachermate Handheld Computer.
They have designed it as a compact mobile handheld with great appear to children as it looks like a gaming device, and among its innovative capabilities is the on-screen words recording via a built-in microphone, so that students to compare their own voice recordings to the PC’s rendition of the story. Then comes a series of math applications created to be friendly and to develop children’s numeracy skills.
The CETYS Universidad en Mexico will be the first to implement this system, while the children in the area will benefit from the next applications developed by the Education and Engineering School.



"Mobile learning technology loaded with innovative educational content for basic literacy and numeracy seems to be in a dire need in many regions of the global community today. For those who have no opportunity to watch TV and do not own a single book, a mobile learning solution may be a viable educational option," declared Paul Kim, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer for Stanford University's School of Education.

500 elementary schools from Chicago will receive the cheapest computer during next two years.
"Our Teachermate handheld computers offer schools the ability to affordably provide individualized instruction to every student," said Seth Weinberger, Executive Director of Innovations for Learning. "We are thrilled to join forces with Dr. Kim and Stanford University to bring our technology to children in need not only in the US but throughout Latin America. Mobile technology will transform education, and Dr. Kim and I are committed to demonstrating the educational effectiveness of this powerful technology."



Teachermate is durable and lightweight so any 5-year old student to be able to use it in any condition, without the possibility to get injured from it as the margins are rounded, and having a strong screen protection for the eyes.
The $50 handheld computer is powered by an ARM9 32-bit processor with 200MHz speeds, integrating 500MB NAND Flash RAM memory, SD card slot to expand the memory when needed, speaker, headphone jack, and a 16-bit LCD display. It charges via the AC/DC adapter or via USB connectivity to a standard computer, to last up to 3.5 hours in continuous use.
For storage it comes with a flash memory instead of hard drive hard disk drive, booting in just 10 seconds and shutting down in 5.

A class teacher can charge all the Teachermate devices in the same time with the Synch and Store Case that you see in the image. The case has to be plugged into an AC outlet.
With Synch and Store Case the teacher can even synchronize all the scores to the Classroom Management Program and the data from the program back to all devices, if, for example, there are software updates available.

I feel like describing one of the Next-Gen PC Design Competition concepts, but Teachermate is very useful for both students and teachers and based on the existent technologies it is not complicated to built. Maybe it is more complicated to implement it.
I was saying that via the Classroom Management Program teachers can control all the handhelds for various purposes including creating groups of students, check students’ progress, make settings to individual student level, set priority of different activities, print reports for parents, and all these after spending several minutes to learn how to use Teachermate.



The reading and math programs identified by the teacher at the beginning of the year, will run to each Teachermate and applications cover phonics, fluency, comprehension, writing, length measurement, temperature measurement, scale measurement, fractions, geometric shapes, coins, and even math games. The Spanish support is not missing either.

Innovations for Learning is in charge with the software development for the platform and the applications installed.