Frits Hoff

Frits Hoff (1960) is educational technologist and founder and boardmember of the foundation OpenWijs.nl, specialised in the concept “One Laptop Per Child” (www.openwijs.nl ). Also owner of the company Edupaper.nl, specialized in M-learning, mobile-learning. Until January 1 2008, he was employed at the Open Universiteit Nederland (Open University of the Netherlands) as projectmanager e-learning. Earlier he worked for a European network for distance education (EADTU, www.eadtu.nl ), a expertisecentre for regional ICT projects (EICT, http://eict.hszuyd.nl ) and a polytechnic (HHS www.hhs.nl ). The first 10 years of his working life he has been teacher of physics and IT at a secondary school (HML www.hml.nl ).

Frits likes to be a pioneer, working on innovative projects. Some examples. In 1988 he was one of the first teachers who graduated with IT. Soon he could use PC's in his lessons, not only for IT but also for physics. The library of the school changed into a multimedia library. When he became the ICT coordinator at the secondary school he realised IT should not be separate but part of all lessons. Already in 1996 he used Active Worlds, a 3D virtual world, for student exchange (www.l3d.nl ). In 1999 he developed with a small team a new way of concurrent education, work and learn together, just like the master and companion in the Middle Ages. In 2002 he was one of the founders of LEX, the learning experience. A high-tech learning centre of the OU NL where people can experience what innovation can do for your organisation in stead of listen to only nice stories (http://www.ou.nl/eCache/DEF/90/064.html ). In 2005 he started the company Dokeos-Nederland.nl to support e-learning with the open source ELE (electronic learning environment) Dokeos (www.dokeos-nederland.nl ) In 2006 he was the first worldwide to use electronic paper in education (http://www.edupaper.nl/inhoud/welcome ). Now he is the first to use the OLPC XO in education in the Netherlands and some other countries.