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Educational researcher Dr. Sugata Mitra's experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other. In 1999, Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC and left it there. What they saw was kids playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it, how to go online, and teaching

each other. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra calls it "minimally invasive education."

Sugata Mitra - Hole in the Wall Project

It's quite fashionable to say that the educational system is broken. It's not broken. It's wonderfully constructed. It's just that we don't need it anymore. - Sugata Mitra

Mitra shared another one of his experiments – the “granny cloud,” a community of retired teachers who Skyped into learning centers and encouraged children with questions and assignments. He calls this type of environment a SOLE — a self-organized learning environment. It’s based on a curriculum of questions that set curiosity free, varying forms of peer assessment and certification without examination. “If we let the educational process be a self-organizing organism, learning emerges,” says Mitra. “It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting education happen.”

We need a pedagogy free from fear and focused on the magic of children's innate quest for information and understanding - Sugata Mitra

Sugata Mitra - SOLE (Self organised learning environment)

An article looking at Mitra's vision of education in the future.

In nine months, a group of children left alone with a computer in any language will reach the same standard as an office secretary in the West. — Sugata Mitra

http://www.ted.com/speakers/sugata_mitra.html

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jun/15/schools-teaching-curriculum-education-google

theGuardian

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

A selection of TED talks from Sugata Mitra

Sugata Mitra - additional links

The organisation set up to implement Mitra's innovations in education