In 1999, New Delhi's physicist professor Sugata Mitra puts a PC
with a high speed internet connection in a wall in the slums of Kalkaji
(New Delhi, India) and watches what happens.
After seven years of rigorous measurements across the Indian
subcontinent, he summarizes what he has learn into what he named as
being a “a puzzle in four pieces”:
• The quality of education reduces with “remoteness”
• Educational technology should be designed for and go to the remotest areas first
• Learning is a process of self organisation
• Values are acquired, doctrine is imposed
Groups of children, given access to shared, publicly accessible computers in playgrounds and other public areas, will teach themselves to use the technology on their own. This will happen independently of who or where they are.
Through what is arguably the largest experiment in primary education in recent times, Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University went on to discover that his “playground” computers would:
1. Produce computer literacy
2. Improve math and English scores
3. Change social values
4. Improve school attendance
5. Reduce school dropout rates
6. Reduce petty crime
7. Generate local goodwill
8. Benefit boys and girls equally
Through this seven years of field work across the Indian subcontinent, his results were verified amongst 250,000 of the world’s poorest children. Almost half of these were girls.
This method is now know as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). MIE is new educational technology for achieving mass computer literacy, and some basic primary education at a cost that is considerably lower than traditional alternatives. It employs learning models such as collaborative constructivism and a series of interlocking innovations, both technological and pedagogical. Computers are made available in shared, public spaces, free of charge and no structure is imposed on when, how or what children learn.
This method is composed of several innovations in hardware technology, software technology, and cognitive design. It is one of the first attempts at applying the principle of self-organising systems to children’s education. Self-organising systems are usually studied in the context of Physics and Mathematics and this attempt, arguably, represents amongst the first in the social sciences.
• The quality of education reduces with “remoteness”
• Educational technology should be designed for and go to the remotest areas first
• Learning is a process of self organisation
• Values are acquired, doctrine is imposed
Groups of children, given access to shared, publicly accessible computers in playgrounds and other public areas, will teach themselves to use the technology on their own. This will happen independently of who or where they are.
Through what is arguably the largest experiment in primary education in recent times, Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University went on to discover that his “playground” computers would:
1. Produce computer literacy
2. Improve math and English scores
3. Change social values
4. Improve school attendance
5. Reduce school dropout rates
6. Reduce petty crime
7. Generate local goodwill
8. Benefit boys and girls equally
Through this seven years of field work across the Indian subcontinent, his results were verified amongst 250,000 of the world’s poorest children. Almost half of these were girls.
This method is now know as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). MIE is new educational technology for achieving mass computer literacy, and some basic primary education at a cost that is considerably lower than traditional alternatives. It employs learning models such as collaborative constructivism and a series of interlocking innovations, both technological and pedagogical. Computers are made available in shared, public spaces, free of charge and no structure is imposed on when, how or what children learn.
This method is composed of several innovations in hardware technology, software technology, and cognitive design. It is one of the first attempts at applying the principle of self-organising systems to children’s education. Self-organising systems are usually studied in the context of Physics and Mathematics and this attempt, arguably, represents amongst the first in the social sciences.
