Hole in the wall computer

Dan

Dan

Staff
A guy in India put a computer in a wall (without a keyboard) and let children play with it. In 6 months, they taught themselves and each other English and computer skills that would rival the skills of an office worker in the west. Not that this is about East vs. West thing, but rather a concept of education where children left to their own devices will do amazing things.

At one of his talks, Mr. Sugata Mitra jokes that most people would not know how to operate a computer without a keyboard. I am one of them.

Going back to one village, the children asked for a faster processor and a better mouse, lol. There, they did not have internet. Only CDs.

http://www.npr.org/2013/06/21/179828483/can-schools-exist-in-the-cloud

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=179828483&m=179829517

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Tom, you gotta show this to Mrs. Really amazing stuff.
 
933d1171294346-microsoft-helpdesk-india-microsoft.jpg
 
Toadmund said:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/02/22/sidner.india.slumdog.inspiration.cnn?iref=videosearch
I wonder if in North America the bully kids would get all the computer time and the nerds would languish at the back of the line.
Click to expand...

Ha! I was the nerd, Toadmund. Back in like 1980, our school had a smattering of PET computers. They would be provided to classrooms for indoor recess (like on rain-days). The early-onset puberty dirt-bags would always hog them. Reminds me of the haydays of videogames; in my town, there were a gaggle of mean teanagers who smoked cigarettes and rode dirt-bikes. Whenever I had a few quarters, I would head to the local card-n-gift store (which had a small videogame nook) to play Asteroids. Well, these clowns would invariably show up within minutes of me playing my first game...would pile a mound of quarters on the cabinet, and exclaim "NEXT!". ******bags. Well, I'm 6'3", 280lbs, and "formidible" now. I run into these turds periodically...they fawn over me.
 
LOL, too funny



The thing that amazed me about the findings was not that a computer was used but the truly incredible way kids with no training, taught them selves. Later studies showed the really poor kids test scores rivaled the much better off children in academies.

One village had no one who could speak English and in 6 months, kids were not only using it for the computer stuff, they were speaking it to each other.

This is some real "Yay for Humanity" stuff.


How many Ocmehd Einsteins or Mary Galileos been lost to poverty and lack of education?
 
My thoughts Kioshk, was the new playground at elementary school, they had these rings that you grabbed and went to the other side, they were on top
mounted rails with bearings.
The tough aggressive kids would get to play and hog the rings and the other kids didn't get a chance.
Our school at the time only had a couple Atari 400-800's and was in a room that the nerdy kids had access to, then ho BOY, we then got a Vic 20 and a C64 in our own house!

Those poor Indians seem really enthusiastic about these computers, probably more fun than looking at a dirt floor or fishing for turds in a ditch.

They need some Raspberry Pi!
 
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