A Ted talk given by Sugata Mitra who is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University, England.  He has also won the TED Prize 2013 and is best known for his experiment “Hole in the Wall”.

Professor Mitra shares information with humour on the various experiments on education that commenced in 1999 with the Hole in the Wall experiment in New Delhi, India.  A computer was embedded in a wall in the slums of New Delhi.  There the children did not go to school, had not seen a computer and did not know what the internet was.  What followed were some amazing results, which spurred the experiments to expand to other parts of India and other parts of the world.  Each time exploring what type and to what levels learning could take place.

What we like

• The experiment found that children, no matter who or where they are, can learn to use a computer and internet unsupervised
• The Granny Cloud – someone that is simply interested in what has been learnt and showing encouragement and the resulting benefits

Mind experience

• A CNN Reporter commented that Sugata Mitra “Dared to believe in the spirit of children.”  And through this rather than limit with preconceived ideas of how children should learn he left it up to the children themselves with the aid of computers.  In the talk he notes 2 young boys prior to the experiment wanted to be footballers.  After watching TED talks now want to be Leonardo Da Vinci.  Be amazed by the results and inspired by our human potential

To think about

• Sugata Mitra:  Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.
• Arthur C Clarke:  If children have an interest then education happens.

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