Surprise in the cloud…

It should have been a disappointment that my School in the Cloud session is cancelled today, as I was looking forward to reconnecting with the girls at GGSS in New Delhi after their summer break. Instead I end up enjoying a delightful individual interaction with a surprisingly articulate twelve year old…

Jaya, the first student back at school after the summer, greets me with a ‘Hullo Mam’ and I wonder momentarily how we’ll manage to last the forty minute session in limited English, without a whole group to share the conversation. After a brief introductory chat about family and how much she enjoys playing with her three year old niece, I ask about the school holidays.

Jaya draws herself up and talks confidently about an organised school trip to various sites around Delhi. I’m captivated by her enthusiastic description of the hands on activities at the Science Museum, an exciting visit to  Chhatarpur Temple and an interlude at Indira Gandhi Park. She talks about her first ever encounter with soldiers, what she noticed and what she found out from them. She tells me about games they played in the park and offers to demonstrate next time when the girls are back at school. I’m impressed by her thoughtful commentary on what she observed and how she learned from each experience.

I ask Jaya whether she feels she learns more at school or through experiences such as these. We talk about the difference between this kind of experiential learning and the kind that happens at school (especially traditional Indian school) where the focus is on marks and tests. When poor sound or unfamiliar accents limit communication, we use written chat to confirm mutual understanding.

‘I think you can learn much more on your own,’ she says. I ask if she knows that Professor Sugata Mitra, founder of School in the Cloud, believes that children can learn by themselves. ‘It’s true,’ she says… ‘but you still need school and teachers to teach you other important things.’

When time is up, I congratulate Jaya on her English and tell her how much I’ve enjoyed our conversation. After the call, the site coordinator sends me a message to say how impressed the school is by the progress Jaya has made through these interactions.

Hours later I’m still thinking about the grace of this lovely young lady, her eagerness to learn and her appreciative retelling of the kind of excursion that students at my privileged school take totally for granted.

Once again I am reminded of the opportunities for mutual learning which these interactions create.

* If you’re interested in joining the Granny Cloud, read more and apply on the School in the Cloud website.

Too many iPads…

In a shift from laptops to iPads, for more mobility, easier use, fewer maintenance issues and lower cost, all our students now bring their own devices. I know it’s a luxury and I am always conscious of how students in less fortunate contexts could benefit from a small fraction of the resources we have at our fingertips.

Yesterday we had an informal visit from Sugata Mitra, educational researcher, proponent of minimally invasive education, creator of the School in the Cloud, dreamer, provocateur…

The Year 5 children tell Sugata they are currently learning about energy. He throws them the inevitable ‘big question’, his signature approach to self organised learning. ‘I’ll give you 20 minutes to find out what you can, in any way you like, about dynamic equilibrium.’

Due to limited space on the whiteboard, the two words appear one below the other and some children ask whether it’s a phrase. He gives his standard response ‘I have no idea’… encouraging students to figure things out for themselves.

Interestingly, the children initially stay in their own seats and investigate on their individual devices. No-one has told them not to move or converse. In fact Sugata spent some time before the question chatting with them about how often and why they move seats.

There is so little talk or collaboration at first that we wonder if they are inhibited by the group of teachers observing in the room or the presence of the eminent stranger.

Eventually, with a bit of encouragement, they begin to move around and interact,  the noise level goes up and the learning is closer to what Sugata calls the ‘edge of chaos‘ as they share their discoveries and develop their understanding collaboratively.

‘There are too many iPads,‘ Sugata says.

‘Limiting the number of devices ensures that the children move naturally into groups to share and discuss their findings and questions.’

We hadn’t really considered the possibility that 1:1 access could be a disadvantage in some learning situations…

It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting it happen…

“It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting it happen”… This is the crux of Sugata Mitra’s message, whether he is talking about minimally invasive education, self organised learning environments or the School in the Cloud.

It’s very different from traditional approaches to education, but not so far removed from the student centred, inquiry driven learning that takes place at my school.

My colleague Jocelyn, with the task of teaching her spelling group Latin and Greek derivations, decides to let go even more than usual and use the SOLE approach.

She begins with Sugata’s ‘Child Driven Education’ TED talk as an introduction to provoke their thinking. All she does is show the video and ask her eleven/twelve-year-old learners to make observations and connections…

• You don’t need a teacher to teach you If you want to learn.
• It’s like a process – we learn from each other just like the kids in India at the hole in the wall.
• If we do our own exploration, we will learn more skills.
• If we find out and understand for ourselves where spelling comes from, we are more likely to learn it and remember.
• We can choose what we want to learn and we learn more when we are passionate about it.
• When you set your mind to something you can do it.
• Sometimes we just need someone to look over and tell us we are good.
• You need curiosity to learn.
• Kids learn by themselves. If they have an interest they will learn.
• Learn how kids want to learn and they will learn.

In the next lesson, Joc introduces the ‘big question’ – How have other languages influenced English words?  She explains that in self organised learning environments, learners are free to choose their own groups and to move freely between groups. They will need to present their learning to others in an engaging way at the end.

And then… she lets the learning happen!

Marty forms a group of six and suggests they go through each step of the information process -define, locate, select, organise, present. By the end of the lesson, they have broken the big questions down into three inquiry questions and begun to explore. They will consider many ways to present but only choose later, so that they will be able to see the mode of presentation that suits best.

Raf’s group realises they need some background knowledge as they only know a little about Greek and Latin roots. They immediately start researching and are very excited to find out that the English language has developed over time from so many different sources. They are intrigued to discover the extent to which wars have influenced the language.

Each of the groups decides how they want to approach the learning and every group is different.

Every one of our learning principles underpins this inquiry –

• We learn in different ways, depending on abilities, preferences and interests.
• Learning takes place through inquiry: questioning, exploring, experimenting and problem solving.
• Learning occurs by acquiring skills and knowledge, constructing meaning and transfer to other contexts.
• Learning is active and social and best takes place through collaboration and interaction.
• Learning needs to be challenging, meaningful, purposeful and engaging.
• Learning includes meta-cognition and reflection, and requires learners to take ownership of their learning.

The learners are highly engaged and motivated. The teacher sits back and observes the learning unfold…

Letting learning happen…

Knowing is obsolete.

Teachers may no longer be needed.

Could it be that you don’t need to go to school at all?

If you’ve watched Sugata Mitra’s TED talks, you’ll have heard him deliver these and other similarly provocative statements that challenge the notion of school as most people know it. Wherever his work is mentioned, responses range from highly positive to even more highly critical to quite rude. For every teacher excited by his ideas, there are several who find them insubstantial, objectionable or downright threatening. For me, this is part of the charm!

My favourite line from his ‘School in the Cloud’ TED talk is this:

“It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting it happen”… THIS is the key.

Whether or not you choose to believe that schools will change (or, gasp, become obsolete); whether you believe that teachers are instructors, facilitators, guides or not required at all…

Are you ready to acknowledge that children are able to learn by themselves?

Have you taken steps to release control and encourage your students to take ownership of their learning?

Are you ‘letting learning happen’? 

I’ve followed Sugata’s work since the early days and his ‘hole-in-the-wall’ experiments influenced the thinking of thousands of teachers, by highlighting the possibilities of student driven learning. In the video below, he talks about the current status of the School in the Cloud project, his wish that won the 2013 million dollar TED prize.

I’ve met Sugata in person and enjoyed his tongue in cheek sense of humour and the way he cheerfully pokes fun, so I find his closing words amusing…

“What would it be like if we had the kind of world where if you asked a child ‘Do you go to school?’ he says ‘I don’t know’?…well, think about that”.

When I once showed my elderly mother photos of learning in the school at which I work, it didn’t look at all like school to her. I sincerely hope that when my great-grandchildren go to school (if indeed school still exists), it won’t look anything like school today.

For now, I’m excited to be working with teachers and learners in these changing times, exploring inquiry learning, provoking thinking, pushing boundaries, challenging the notion of school as it used to be and ‘letting learning happen‘.

And I’m even more excited to be part of the learning in Sugata’s ‘School in the Cloud’.

I’ve been a member of the ‘granny cloud’ for a number of years, interacting with children in a range of settings in India and, along with the other ‘grannies’ (including people of both genders and all ages!) supporting Suneeta (Research Director of the School in the Cloud) who’s been instrumental in keeping this project alive, breathing life into it during even the most challenging times.

Yesterday marked the opening of the first ‘School in the Cloud’ in India, at a government girls’ school in Delhi, a stone’s throw from the site of the first hole-in-the-wall, and I was there (well, only on the screen), not just observing, but playing an active role.

As always in these sessions, the children started off a little reticent, quiet, filled with awe… but soon they were chatting and smiling and even singing for me.

It didn’t matter that there were other people in the room – Suneeta, the media, visitors, Sugata and his crew – I was unaware of them as I engaged with the kids.

It didn’t matter that screen-sharing wasn’t working properly. The cloud grannies are used to abandoning plans and improvising.

It didn’t matter that the girls are unfamiliar with Skype and didn’t know where to type their names, when I didn’t quite understand their accents. They will figure it out next time.

It’s been a while since I last interacted with kids in the SOLES and I am really happy to be back. It’s exciting to be part of Sugata’s vision of learning and I’m ready to ‘let learning happen‘…

Face to Face

Guest post by Jackie Barrow who has been involved in the SOLE and SOME project for over three years. During that time she has interacted with different groups of children in a variety of locations in India.

My relationship with Khelghar Palakneeti, a charity run after school provision for the children of the Lakshminagar slum of Pune, began well over a year ago. Their unwavering commitment to the SOLE project is what makes it work so well. For one hour a week, the children are permitted to use the office computer in order to connect with me. No, of course it doesn’t always run smoothly! There are all the usual frustrations; poor connections, no sound, no video, no children, no staff, monsoon rains, holidays and festivals at both ends meaning we’re not around. But when sessions don’t or can’t take place for any reason, we let each other know. This continuity has allowed me to build a real relationship with the children and staff.

An opportunity…

Back in April a film crew from the BBC’s Technology Website came to film me Skyping my group at Khelghar and talking about my involvement in the SOLE and SOME project. Following on from this, the BBC’s One Show, a magazine style programme, proposed a trip to Pune to meet and film with my group of children. I am sure you can imagine how thrilled I was. This was an opportunity not to be missed.

I had no reservations about the trip itself but I did have reservations about the filming. I was worried that the cameras would be intrusive and alter the nature of my interaction with the children. We were to visit the slum where the children live and meet with their families. I thought maybe this would seem somewhat voyeuristic and that the slum dwellers might resent our presence.

However, I need not have worried. The two young men who made up the film crew had both visited India before and were as excited as I was about the project. They quickly became favourites with both the staff and the children and although they and the cameras were ever present, none of us felt inhibited by their presence. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did! Not when I was reading stories, teaching felting or just chatting with the children, but I found the ‘interviews’ more difficult and the constant need to try to articulate how I was feeling.

How was I feeling? Well, just completely overwhelmed by the scale of the problems they are faced with and by the fantastic work going on at Khelghar. I will leave you to read more about Khelghar Palakneeti, but let me tell you how inspiring women like Shubhada Joshi and her team of staff and volunteers are. Some have themselves grown up in the slums of Pune but have managed not only get a basic education but to go on to higher education. Not content with just improving their own lives and prospects, they work to support children and their families, helping them see that education is a way out of the trap of poverty. I felt very proud to be associated with these women and to play my own, very small, part in their project.

Meeting the children…

So how was it, meeting the children? I must confess that I began to feel quite nervous. What were they expecting? Would I prove to be a disappointment, this so-called ‘granny’ from England? I learnt later from Suneeta that they were nervous too! Would they be able to understand me? Would they know what to say? But nerves were soon forgotten on both sides. I had decided to just carry on from the Skype session the week before, when we had been talking about the 2012 London Olympics. Within minutes we were on our hands and knees, sorting and matching pairs of cards. I followed this with a story they knew, Mr. Gumpy’s Outing by John Burningham but instead of just reading it, we acted it out. Their level of participation far outstripped what I had hoped for. I had a second session with the children a couple of days later, a practical activity, teaching them how to make felt. The plan was to make some bunting with the word Khelghar. So we set to with wool, water and soap to create and decorate our felt. Once again, the children threw themselves into the session and although we didn’t quite achieve the finished article at the time, they have shown it to me today, three weeks later, over Skype. Fantastic!

This second session took place in the slum. Khelghar has two small buildings there where they hold classes for groups of girls and younger children. I thought that entering the slum might feel quite intimidating. The piles of rubbish being picked over by birds, cats and people, and the volley of barking from the thin, scabby looking dogs, is hardly welcoming. However, once again, I need not have worried. Whether it was the presence of the cameras, or the respect with which Suneeta Kulkarni and the staff and volunteers from Khelghar, are held within this community, I am not sure. We were greeted with friendly curiosity. People waved, called out greetings and warned us of holes, puddles and mopeds. It was wonderful to see how Suneeta was greeted by the children of the slums of Pune, one little girl rushing down the hill all smiles to throw her arms around Suneeta Tai. Children walked with us up the steep, treacherous lanes between the dwellings.

Homes tend to be a single room, sometimes with a foundation of stone or brick, generally finished with wood or corrugated iron. They house the cooking equipment, sometimes the moped, a small shrine, some clothes storage and a large wooden family bed with a thin mattress. There is no running water inside, though an unreliable electricity supply is delivered across a tangle of wires. The people are construction workers, often the women too. The mother of one of my regulars, a woman of 36, is ill and waiting for her husband to be paid before she can collect her medicine. She has spent the last twenty years carrying bags of sand and cement on building sites. She would be beautiful if she were not so thin and drawn. She is determined that her son will finish his education and have opportunities that she and her husband have not had. In an interview with him earlier, he told us that he wants to be a car mechanic, which is certainly achievable.

So what the BBC’s One Show viewers will make of my experience, I’m not too sure. I hope that the films will not only give a true idea of the vision of Professor Sugata Mitra but will do justice to the efforts of all those who make such a difference to the lives of children on a daily basis. As for me, well I count myself extremely lucky to have had this opportunity and hope very much that I can use it to further support the work of the project. And of course, I will always have a particular interest in the work of Khelghar Palakneeti and in the futures of the children I have met there.

Related posts:

Play House

Opening New Vistas

Teacher as learner

A surprise meeting with Sugata Mitra…

Almost as soon we meet, Suneeta tells me she has a surprise for me.  I imagine a specially prepared dish or a small gift, perhaps a souvenir of India.

It’s Sugata Mitra. He’s an old friend of hers, family almost, and she has worked closely with him for many years too. He’s in Pune for the day and visiting at her home.

Sugata immediately puts me at ease with his friendliness and banter.  His sense of humor is dry and he cheerfully pokes fun at all and sundry. He and Suneeta have been friends since childhood and during my stay, she shares anecdotes from their past. I don’t generally think about the private lives of people whose work inspires me, so this is fun!

Ever since first encountering the the hole-in-the-wall, I have been fascinated and excited by the project, the further developments and related research into self organised learning environments. In a series of real-life experiments from Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids access to computers and the internet, producing results that should revolutionize how we think about teaching. It helped me see that if teachers let go of control and allow students to direct their learning, the learning is much more engaging and meaningful. 

We talk about hole-in-the-wall and I learn that it is a company  now, with computers in holes in many places. We talk about SOLES and Sugata tells me more about his work in schools around the world with self-organized learning environments. I tell him about my school and we share anecdotes about teachers who have trouble letting go of control and allowing the students to own their learning. I’m interested to hear that he has seen new open-plan learning spaces being used in old ways and I realise that the reality at my school’s junior campus is far from unique. He confirms that changing practice takes time and is dependent on what people believe about learning, something we often talk about within my PLN. He tells me about his coming extended research, through MIT University in Boston, into how children teach themselves to read. Here’s a link to one of his recent talks on student directed learning.

Over lunch of dahl and rice, spicy fish and chappati, the conversation is relaxed and easy. Although today is the first time we have met, I’m with people who not only share my interests, but have helped shaped my beliefs about learning. I’m in my element.

While I am there, Sugata goes down the street to get his hair cut, something he only does when back in India, and tells me the worst haircut he ever had was just before his meeting with Prince Phillip. I joke that I will search for a photo of the occasion to compare haircuts…

(3rd in a series of reflections on my visit to Pune)

Contrasting conversations…

I’m a huge admirer of the work of Sugata Mitra, as you will know if you read this blog. It was great fun today to talk to a class in Hong Kong… and Sugata himself! As an e-mediator with the SOLE and SOME project, I was asked to do a session with this group as part of a demonstration for teachers there to see the possibilities of such global interactions.

The class of extremely well behaved, somewhat formal 12 year olds, sat quietly and watched as small groups came up to the camera to talk to me. They introduced themselves politely one at a time and answered my questions about their school subjects, their hobbies and their interests. They respectfully asked a few questions and, with some encouragement, sang their school song. These students are clearly from well-to-do homes, as many have travelled extensively and some have even been to Australia. When I asked what they thought the similarities and differences between our countries might be, they thoughtfully expressed their ideas. They all speak Mandarin and Cantonese and most of them spoke very good English. Although I had a problem with screen sharing (I hadn’t practiced with the latest version of Skype), it was easy to engage them in conversation for about an hour. They were interested to hear that at my school, we use Skype for interactions of this sort as part of class learning.

No sooner had the conversation ended, then I had a call from one of the SOLEs in Hyderabad. There was lots of activity and noise in the room as kids came and went. The usual core group of girls stayed at the computer, chattering cheerfully. I have been away for a while and they seemed excited to see me, waving, making faces and all talking at once, mostly in Hindi! Much of the conversation (if you can call words and short phrases a conversation!) was typed, as the background hubbub made it hard to hear and anyway we use text to support the communication and help overcome accent and language barriers. It was Thaseen’s birthday and she was wearing a glitering red and silver dress and distributing chocolates to her friends. I asked about their birthday traditions and they told me she was having a party for friends and relatives and there would be cake but not gifts. We sang happy birthday, they clapped for themselves and laughed at me pretending to eat the proffered chocolate, mimicking the expressions on my face. I showed them how to fold the wrapper into a boat and while this modeling and copying was going on, more kids appeared and told me their names, talked over each other and redirected the camera to themselves.

I caught up with Rodger, another Australian e-mediator for a few minutes afterwards…

[7:12:01 PM] Edna: hi rodger
[7:12:17 PM] Edna: did you talk to HK too?
[7:34:29 PM] Rodger M: yes… how was it?
[8:06:45 PM] Edna: very different than the indians!
[8:07:02 PM] Rodger M: yes… much better english …
[8:07:15 PM] Rodger M: and much better communication quality
[8:07:27 PM] Rodger M: but more reserved and formal
[8:07:41 PM] Edna: and better off, well travelled… quite a few had been to Aus
[8:07:52 PM] Rodger M: yes .. quite different
[8:08:02 PM] Edna: then i had a bunch of noisy jiya kids with poor english… more fun!
[8:08:15 PM] Rodger M: yes 😀
[8:08:20 PM] Edna: lots of laughing
[8:08:47 PM] Rodger M: yes … just being themselves
[8:09:19 PM] Rodger M: 🙂

Contrast makes life interesting…

Opening new vistas…

Guest post by Suneeta Kulkarni.

#8 in the series Learning in different contexts.

You may already be familiar with Sugata Mitra’s work. Some of you may have gathered from Edna’s earlier posts that the initiative SOMEs (Self Organized Mediation Environments) grew out of the SOLEs (Self Organized learning Environments). We began this particular initiative in May 2009 and faced many challenges along the way. Ask any of the eMediators and they could give you a long list. But what most of them would also share with you are the ‘highs’. The thrill we experience each time we make contact is beyond description… because we go just that bit forward toward reaching our objectives. And what I’d like to share with you is a bit about one of those objectives. The experience we had at today’s SOME at Khelgar, Pune that manifests the movement in that direction….

The SOMEs were initiated to facilitate contact between children in remote, disadvantaged settings in rural and urban areas. When we began, we were not sure where it would lead…. Every day brings new surprises! What began as a primarily story telling /story reading activity rapidly expanded to include puzzles, quizzes, sharing pictures, free flowing conversation, and even craft activities. The starting objective was that children would become confident and pick up English fluency and, in the process, be able to make more effective use of the internet for their academic development.

Though the media still refers to it as the ‘granny cloud’, that is a misnomer, catchy though the phrase might be. We have in our group not only grannies, but also grandpas, as well as uncles and aunts and elder ‘siblings’ too. What we are emphasizing in all these relationships is the ‘grandmother’ approach.It means that the children get to interact with a person who is encouraging, and appreciative of their efforts, irrespective of whether or not they are entirely familiar with what the child is trying out!

A lot has happened since Sugata came up with the idea. Through this period, we became more and more aware of the potential of the SOMEs to enable children to achieve objectives even more important than learning English. It has opened up new vistas for them,  helped children all over the world gain new perspectives, enabled them to become acquainted with and better understand different ways of living, recognize and appreciate the meaning of traditions and customs in different set ups.

Earlier this month we were able to get going, thanks to the children at the SOLE in Shirgaon, Maharashtra and Edna’s school in Melbourne, Australia, direct interaction between the children themselves. And yet other gains opened up….

Interest in the SOMEs and its possibilities for helping children learn English, specially conversational English has begun to spread and even places that do not have regular SOLEs set up are trying to figure out how they can still have the SOMEs, while figuring out how to get the whole SOLE facility.  One such organization is Palakneeti Khelghar in Pune. They provide meaningful ‘out of school’ recreational and academic experiences to children living in a nearby slum area.

So today, again with an interaction set up between children in Australia and those from Pune, we explored what would happen if children from Melbourne attempted to find out about the experiences of the Khelghar children related to ‘water’. The children had all kinds of questions! And they drew many responses, quite a few even after the session was over! Do remember that the children at Khelghar have never used a computer before. (They have seen one in the centre’s office, but that’s about it).

The thought of seeing children from so far away in their own room was exciting, and intimidating all at once. But they caught on to the idea that they could find out about each other using this medium:  text on skype, translations from and into English, from and into Marathi and Hindi. And I was inundated with queries to send to them even after the session was over.

But what really struck me, yet again, was the vast potential for understanding different perspectives and situations. Here are just a few of the questions from Melbourne and the kind of responses: (edited to show the connection between the question and answer)

Q: Where do you get your water from, is it fresh and clean? Do you ever get sick from the water? Do you get water 24 hours in a day?

A: No (in response to availability of water)

Q: When do you get your water?

A: 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the evening

Q:  Do you store water? How? Where do you wash your clothes, Do you use the tap water?

A: yes… in barrels, cans, and tanks in the house and big kitchen utensils

(wash clothes) at home from the stored water

and a little later in the conversation—

Q: Does the government help you in any way?

A: at election time, (some parties) make sure we get water for 2 days at a stretch (Other children added) The Govt puts liquid chlorine in the barrels to purify the water, also potassium permagnate

Q: Do you a have a family?  Is the water enough for your family?

A: Yes it is enough…

I wonder what children with resources would make of this ‘satisfaction’ and ‘contentment’ with what little they have and what other questions might arise in their minds. I do know what questions came up at Khelghar following this conversation… They wanted to know SO much about these children… what they saw through their webcam certainly looked different from what they are used to, but their questions were not about what these ‘other’ children have… the questions were about the system! (Edna, does that answer, to some extent, your concern that these children might feel bad because they see other children having many material resources?)

These are just a few of the queries from Pune:

• Do you have tuition other than school?
• What do you study in history?
• Do your parents send a lunch box with you to school?
• How many days of the year do you have school?
• Do you have a teacher’s day and a children’s day?
• Do you get punished if you don’t study?
• Do you bunk school?
• If someone finds out that you have bunked, what happens?
• Do you have a school uniform? Do you have to tie braids?
• Do you have a centre that you can go to outside of school, like we come to Khelghar?
• Are you forced to study?
• Do you like to study? How do you feel about coming to school?

And then there were questions about families, and food, and God, and festivals, housing facilities and much more. But more about that another time….

As I listened to the questions from the children at Khelghar, I realized that through the questions they were sharing a lot of their own experiences and hope they have a chance to talk about these in more depth. It would show them a world that has many possibilities….. and perhaps they will be enabled to do something about it!

Does access to technology mean access to education?

Today’s #edchat topic was:

‘How do we ensure those without privilege have equal access to quality education and opportunity?’

Many felt that access to technology was the key. But there were just as many tweets expressing the opinion that providing access to technology is not as important as providing good teachers. I usually agree with the latter and have blogged several times about learning being the driver and technology just the tool. But then I work in a privileged school. I confess that I found my thoughts somewhat confused and I left the #edchat conversation in the middle to process further.

I’m still thinking… Does access to education mean access to technology? Does access to technology mean access to education?

Meanwhile, I’d like to repost the following for those who’re unfamiliar with it, to provoke some further thought. I first posted it in November when this blog had about 12 readers!

Have you heard of the inspirational hole-in-the-wall project ?  Several years ago, a computer scientist, Dr. Sugata Mitra, had an idea. What would happen if he could provide disadvantaged children with free, unlimited access to computers and the internet?  He launched what came to be known as the hole in the wall experiment.

Listen to this fascinating TED talk from 2007 , in which Sugata Mitra talks about the project and asks what else children can teach themselves!