Wednesday, December 10, 2008

The Hole In The Wall


Lighting the Spark of Learning
How Children Teach Themselves

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Since its inception in 1999, Hole-in-the-Wall has grown from a single computer at Kalkaji, New Delhi to more than a hundred computers at various locations across India and abroad.

The driving force behind Hole-in-the-Wall is the the concept of Minimally Invasive Education which is truly path breaking. That children could learn on their own, was something not many people would have imagined and that too in such a cost effective manner with benefits like improved group dynamics, better in-class behavior etc.

To test our hypothesis, we conducted over 4 years of rigorous research at various locations. The findings have generated numerous insights which have received world wide attention and have also been published in prestigious journals.

"Education-as-usual assumes that kids are empty vessels who need to be sat down in a room and filled with curricular content. Dr. Mitra's experiments prove that wrong." - Linux Journal

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?

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.
From TED/LIFT 2007 Conference in Geneva, Switzerland
(Video Duration: 25:38)




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