Sugata Mitra Wins the 2013 TED Prize

As an experiment, a man puts a single computer, with only a mouse, no keyboard, three feet off the ground, in a wall, in a slum, in india. Three months later a group of children have created a SOLE, a Self Organized Learning Environment, and taught themselves English, and how to use all the software on the computer.

Unstoppable Learning may be inevitable, but schools and teachers are crushing our children's natural curiosity and driving them to fail.

Sugata Mitra, faced with the impossible task of educating hundreds of millions of India's youth, without resources like money or technology, without educated teachers, found a way.

 “My wish is to help design the future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their innate sense of wonder and work together. Help me build the School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can embark on intellectual adventures by engaging and connecting with information and mentoring online. I also invite you, wherever you are, to create your own miniature child-driven learning environments and share your discoveries.”

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THE PLAN

Recruit technology, architecture, creative, and educational partners to help design and build the School in the Cloud, a physical building in India, designed to try out a range of cloud-based, scalable approaches to self-directed learning.

Contribute to the global network of educators and retired teachers who can support and engage the children through the web.

Engage communities, parents, schools and afterschool programs worldwide, to transform the way kids learn, by sharing the Self Organized Learning Environment’s (SOLE) toolkit, how-to videos, and educational resources.

Work with the TED community to implement various controlled experiments in the School in the Cloud laboratory in India.

Gather feedback from the School in the Cloud laboratory and the global community of SOLE educators to help shape the future of learning. The feedback will be used to create a blueprint, free for others to copy and scale, and a web-based public commons of educational resources.

WATCH SUGATA'S TALKS

5 THINGS YOU CAN DO

1.  Try out a Self-Organized Learning Environment (SOLE) in your home, school or community.
   Download the toolkit & share the results »
2. Join the School in the Cloud mentor network of educators.Email Sugata to become part of the network »
3. Make a financial contribution to this TED Prize wish.
   Email sugata@ted.com »
4. Spread the word. #TEDSOLE
5. Help build the School in the Cloud. See the list of current needs below and email sugata@ted.com to make a commitment.

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HELP BUILD A SCHOOL IN THE CLOUD

This is a list of current needs for the School in the Cloud:

Core technology assistance

• Cloud-based software design to manage laboratory school operations and education resources.
• Video conference capability
• Biometric and sensory technology

Hardware

• Computers
• Large monitors
• Furniture designers
• Solar air conditioners and heaters
• Water purification units
• Innovative display methods (chalkboard paint, glass whiteboards, etc.)

Automated Remote Systems

• Robotic cleaning machines
• Remote heating, lighting and cooling systems
• Other auto-monitoring systems

Architectural

• Build experience in the developing world and tropics
• Awareness of safety, power, electric and storage issues

Marketing

• Identity branding
• Web design
• Training video toolkit

Email sugata@ted.com to make a commitment.

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SUGATA'S BIO

Educational researcher Dr. Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the Wall” experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they’re motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

In 1999, Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.

In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education." 

New SDUSD Strategic Process Plan, 40 years too late.

The district's has so far produced a draft document that lists 12 lofty goals and goes into some detail about what each one means and why it's important.

But the document stops there. So far, there are no plans to create metrics that might inform the district, or the public, how close each school is to attaining each goal. It's a bit like a teacher demanding good grades from students, but without identifying how students should earn them or what the grades are.

District Chief of Staff Bernie Rhinerson said that's by design. The district didn't want to rush into creating a measurement system that would immediately start to brand schools as successful or unsuccessful. The school board wanted to take its time and get it right, he said.

VOSD continues to cover our failing schools, but we've made no progress in four decades. Every few years a new Superintendent comes and the old one goes. The elections of School Board members are a fight between the conservative right and progressive left, and the Teachers' Unions tend to win with both money and votes. We need change, the kids suffer, but the problem is now endemic. Our children are afraid of school, uninspired, and unnourished.

When will we get the leaders we need? I know this should sound cynical, but after watching this all my life, my best guess is we will never find them. The best we can hope for is to save our own children, pay to keep them with quality schools and tutors, after school programs and camps, and try to limit the damage to other people's kids. The system is broken by the very democracy that created it. I suggest we let those who want out of our public schools use some kind of standardized Voucher System, to introduce market like forces into the education system. However, these vouchers must be tempered with strict regulation that doesn't allow schools to pick and choose students based upon uncontrollable atributes: race, religion, economic status, nationality, sexuality, gender, etc.

Project Based Learning

Watch School District Uses Project Based Learning Over Testing on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

PBS NewsHour Reports ...

A public school district in Danville, Ky., has turned its emphasis away from traditional testing in order to encourage creativity and let students learn by doing. NewsHour special correspondent for education John Merrow reports on "deep learning," and how it requires commitment from educators, students and parents.

Noam Chompsky on Education

Chomsky: Corporations and the Richest Americans Viscerally Oppose Common Good - from AlterNet

The Masters of Mankind want us to become the "stupid nation," in the interests of their short-term gain -- damn the consequences.

March 7, 2013  |  

Whether public education contributes to the Common Good depends, of course, on what kind of education it is, to whom it is available, and what we take to be theCommon Good. There’s no need to tarry on the fact that these are highly contested matters, have been throughout history, and continue to be so today.

One of the great achievements of American democracy has been the introductionof mass public education, from children to advanced research universities. And  in some respects that leadership position has been maintained. Unfortunately, not all. Public education is under serious attack, one component of the attack on any  rational and humane concept of the Common Good, sometimes in ways that are  not only shocking, but also spell disaster for the species.

All of this falls within the  general assault on the population in the past generation, the so-called “neoliberal era.” I’ll return to these matters, of great significance and import.

College is a BAD Investment

Federal law protects private banks and denies students bankruptcy rights.

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This is how you educate your kids to run a political campaign.

Wolfram Alpha

I believe the first nation that leaps forward and begins teaching using this new method will lead the world economically. - computerbasedmath.org

(see Estonia)

Teach Kids Math by concept, not by computation. Let the computer do the computation.

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