HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Take a listen [1].You'll be amazed at the ingenuity. No teacher required!

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

⬐ technomancy

The point stands that the administration is likely to get in the way of donated equipment being put to proper use by the children though.

The problem is people are ok or are even proud of not knowing how their stuff works, even the author isn't ashamed that he has to ask a salesmen what car to buy. People in Africa can take apart your car and put it back together, people in India can become experts in computing from a computer stuck in a wall[1].

Rich lazy first world humans are proud of the fact that they have advanced technology they don't need to understand, its a sign of luxury and 'success' like new clothes you just throw away as fashion changes.

1.http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

They don't cite it, but their experiment was clearly inspired by the successes of the Hole in the Wall project in India which has been successful for many years.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t...

http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Beginnings.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/self-organized-learning-sugata-...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimally_invasive_education

⬐ tomjen3

Go watch his speech. It is amazing.

⬐ None

None

⬐ cjbprime

Yes, Dr. Mitra was involved in this project too. See this comment by Ed McNierney on the Technology Review article:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-bu...

Although OLPC initiated and has been managing this experiment, we haven't done it alone. Right from the beginning the project team has included Prof. Sugata Mitra of Newcastle University (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/staff/profile/sugata.mitra) and Prof. Maryanne Wolf, director of the Tufts University Center for Reading and Language Research (http://ase.tufts.edu/crlr/team/wolf.htm).

Here is another version of the talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/sugata_mitra_the_child_driv...

Stanford's classes are specially designed for online education (i.e. not a byproduct of on-campus lectures from 2003). In last years 3 major innovation dramatically increased effectiveness of online education:

1. Special format (found by Salman Khan): short videos, blackboard

2. A lot of quizzes inside lectures (inquiry based learning). See http://t.co/eN9g9MAU and http://t.co/YiXUMs9x

3. Group effects (http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...). If your class has definite schedule and you have thousands of people doing this class with you and communicating while doing it, your results will be much higher.

Is anyone from Khan here? Are you guys aware of Sugata Mitra's work?

Mitra has developed and proven a methodology for teaching children in-person using small groups and computers.

Mitra + Khan makes me jump out of my seat.

Here is an incredible introduction to Mitra's work : http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

⬐ sylvinus

Sugata and Sal being two TEDsters, I'm sure they know each other.

⬐ vitrifying

It seems to me that by cooperating with schools and introducing assessment, Khan risks losing his way. The educational value will not be improved by becoming more schoolish -- schools are the problem.

As hackers know and as Mitra showed, learning is fun. However it ceases to be fun when one is told what to study and pressured to compete for meaningless grades/scores/badges.

(IIRC, Mitra doesn't assess children directly in the sense of giving them grades.)

Also, now that Khan knows that children will be assessed on his video material, I expect that this will skew his future presentations in a bad way.

Gaming has been addressed for years by others as it pertains to learning and the future. There are also others working in areas that are proving very useful.

(one of the best videos I've seen)

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2010/09/video-visions-of-the-game...

"Serious games"

http://web.cs.wpi.edu/~rich/courses/imgd404x-c11/playable.ht...

http://www.gamesforchange.org

Child-driven education

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/

Music + hands-on creative work

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_543015...

There's an incredible story (inspiring & practical) of a boy without healthy legs gaining access to salvaged computers and free software to apply his graphics skills to pull his way out of the slums....it's less than 3/4 of the way through this speech by Eben Moglen called "Before and After IP: Ownership of Ideas in the 21st Century" http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/audio/DSG-CUNY-BeforeAndAfter...

I've been collecting a ton of related links and posting them at http://re-configure.org/drupal/node/33

⬐ emit_time_n3rgy

Russian president calls for World of Warcraft-like game for Russian history - http://dvice.com/archives/2011/07/russias-prez-wa.php

Children normally find it easier to adapt to new things. E.g. "Hole in the Wall" experiments: http://www.greenstar.org/butterflies/Hole-in-the-Wall.htm

Related TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

http://www.nd.edu/~cangst/NotreDame_iPad_Report_01-06-11.pdf

http://robertkozma.com/images/kozma_jrte.pdf

http://www.educause.edu/ELI7Things

http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practic...

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

Not formal studies but great anecdotes:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1727292/apple-ipad-officially-pas...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-8OOrBi0o&feature=playe...

Anything on http://speirs.org/

And of course, there's always the success of Khan Academy.

There are many, many more studies and anecdotes available, but these are the ones I either had bookmarked or could remember off the top of my head.

You're right that there's no absolutely conclusive and irrefutable study about tech in classroom because nobody has undertaken such a bold experiment. However, all of the evidence is there and points to the potential of adopting newer tools in classrooms. Unfortunately, people who blindly dismiss all applications of technology in the classroom have slowed farther, more informative studies from being conducted.

⬐ onan_barbarian

This appears to be a dump of randomly selected research papers, many of which don't measure anything remotely connected to outcomes. The standard practice seems to be to do a bunch of surveys afterwards to measure how awesome everyone thought everything had been.

However, I did appreciate this bit from the ed.gov one:

"An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K–12 students."

No shit.

⬐ guptaneil

The data set is too small to achieve a conclusive outcome yet. As more classrooms experiment with these technologies, we'll get more insights. Until then, surveys are the best way to get an idea of how something is working for students.

As for the random dump of research papers, I tried originally offering a more succinct argument with an anecdote, but you wanted more evidence so I obliged.

⬐ onan_barbarian

From what I've seen, so far, when actual outcomes are measured for the whole 'computers in schools', rigorous studies tend to show negative or inconclusive effects.

I'm sure that surveys asking questions like "Was everything MOAR AWESUM in class today?" would have similarly suggested that everyone is more 'engaged' by the computers, but we don't go to school to be engaged, we go to school to learn. If we are 'engaged' by something irrelevant - for example, spending an hour dicking around with the fonts on a presentation - we might report wonderful levels of engagement while achieving zero outcomes.

⬐ guptaneil

Do you have any studies that show these negative effects you keep mentioning? I'm curious to see why they failed. Obviously just tossing technology into a classroom won't do anything, which is what most schools with iPad programs are doing. It has to be adopted by the instructor and actually integrated into the learning process, which is a difficult thing to do.

I agree that surveys are not the most reliable or valid measure of success, but combined with the anecdotal evidence seen by the various experiments, there is a strong case to be made that technology has the potential to provide major positive changes once implemented properly. We have to start the search for the proper implementation somewhere.

Two interesting stories I've crossed paths with are Bill Strickland, author of Making the Impossible Possible, and Sugata Mitra and his "child-driven education" and another referred to me by a friend:

+ http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_543015...

+ http://www.bill-strickland.org

+ http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/bill-strickland/topics/Bill%...

+ http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

+ http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com

+ http://www.georgejuniorrepublic.org/programs.html

There are people like Dr. Sugata Mitra, who after decade of experiments brought this innovative concept of 'SOLE' (Self Organized Learning Environment) ... this can change the world of illiteracy & poverty with little bit help of philanthropy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...

His TED Talks

1. http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_t...

2. http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...