Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Computer in Delhi slum wall leads to million dollar TED prize...

Sugata Mitra on Tuesday was awarded a million-dollar TED Prize to pursue the promise of building schools in the Internet cloud where young minds can learn unfettered by grown-ups.

Mitra's journey to the prestigious TED gathering in the Southern California city of Long Beach began more than a decade ago in Delhi, when he stuck a computer in a hole in a slum wall to see what the children would do.

"I left it to the wolves, so to speak, knowing it would be smashed open and sold," Mitra said of that day in 1999.

"Eight hours later I came back to find them browsing the Internet in English," he recalled. "I realized I had accidentally stumbled onto something universal."

What the physicist-turned-educator seemingly stumbled upon was a way of teaching children better suited for workplaces, cultures and economies increasingly driven by fast-changing technology. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. The Hole in the Wall, or how kids teach themselves...
  2. The Question Box, rural India's Oracle...
  3. India hungry for everyday Internet access...
  4. Education is killing children's creativity...
  5. A journey to unschooling...
  6. Meet India's 12-year-old headmistress!!! Wow!

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