Saturday, March 5, 2011
Could Computers Eliminate the Global Achievment Gap?
In this very intriguing Ted Talk, Sugata Mitra discusses the results of his educational experiements of providing children living in poverty unsupervised access to the web and discovering that children will teach themselves if they have the curiosity to learn. His most well-known project, "Hole in the Wall", 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."
He proposes thinking about education in an entirely different way-- especially for the millions of students who do not, and will never have access to quality teachers. We could create, suggests Mitra, "Self-Organized-Learning-Environments" in which "clouds of grannies" (on-line support network of caring adult volunteers) provide intentional support for the students' learning. Is this meant to threaten, or replace traditional teachers? No, certainly not -- Mitra states, "The “hole in the wall” experiments seem to suggest an alternative, inexpensive and reliable method for bringing computer literacy and primary education to those areas where conventional schools are not functional."
How much would this grand experiment cost? Mitra calculated it like this:
What would it cost the World?
I cannot resist doing this calculation. It is an exercise in fantasy, but one that you might enjoy!
The Earth’s current population: 6 billion
No. of children below 15: 1 billion – usually 15% of the total population
No. of “hole in the wall” computers required: 50 million playground computers, 200 children share each
Cost of computers and related infrastructure: USD 60 billion, each facility with three computers costs USD 1200 to build
Total other costs: USD 6 billion to take care of contingencies in varied terrain
Recurring costs: USD 6 billion per year (that is, less than 2 US cents per child per day)
Time to make operational: Could be done in less than 10 years if an International Agency gets the act together.
Result: No child left behind. Irreversible social change in 15 years as one generation grows up.
That, to this educator, is one technology investment that is completely worth the cost!
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Ugh... just commented and then blogger ate it.
ReplyDeleteI think that he would re soundly answer the question in your post title "no".
He's talking about peer to peer learning. He's talking about scaffolding. He's talking about first and foremost building learning around curiosity, not on structured lectures to multiple kids at once.
And tech does enable that in ways unimaginable 10 years ago..
People who are really excited about Mitra are among those most dismayed that almost all classroom tech money in schools goes not into the hands of kids but in one very very expensive piece of equipment that is primarily good for enabling lecture to a whole class at once in pre-scripted lessons that include little peer-to-peer learning.
So it's not the computers at all -- it's our thinking about learning, and I love how Mitra is pushing our thinking on that, to shift from what teachers do to what kids do!
Yes, Jane, he's talking about scaffolding, peer-to-peer learning, and curiosity-driven learning. But I ask HOW can that happen in the most poverty-strickem areas of the world without the presence of some sort of technology? Mitra aptly summarizes, "Not all the money in the world will correct the problem of lower quality education in remote schools. Schools with absent teachers, no teachers, wicked teachers, sick teachers are abundant throughout Africa, India, South America and other large parts of the world. The more money we spend on teacher development, the more they move to the cities. Without good teachers and administrators, the schools crumble and break."
ReplyDeleteSo if we have the ability to provide an education for much less than the traditional method, I would ask why we are not doing it?!
P.S. Am I actually arguing with you in defense of computers? Ironic.