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146 ‘One Laptop per Child’

elegance and apparent political simplicity of the OLPC business plan, it would seem
that no amount of charismatic leadership, strategic lobbying and technological
sophistication can impose globalised change and transformation onto whole societies
or national education systems. Perhaps most importantly, OLPC reminds us that
“there is no such thing as ‘actor-free’ dissemination or reception, lending or bor-
rowing, export or import” (Tabb 2008, p.345). As with all the examples of educa-
tional technology discussed so far in this book, the grand global ambitions of OLPC
are entwined with the mundane realities of the local educational settings and con-
texts in which they seek to be located (see also Cervantes et al. 2011). We should
therefore take this thought forward as a basis of any attempt to advance the field of
educational technology towards more equitable ends. It is to these issues that we
now turn our attention towards the final chapter of the book.