Thursday, January 22, 2009

Sugata Mitra

This speaks to issues of equity...

"ET should reach the underpriviledged first and not the other way around"- The relative increase in student achievement is tremendous if ET is placed into the highest need schools compared to when applied to the high performing/more affluent school settings. The study that showed student achievement drops proportionately the farther away the school is from Delhi was interesting (check out the video if you haven't seen it). Was this a result of lack of technology or of lower teacher job satisfaction?

Interesting- without training, kids with no prior schema are able to learn not only about how to use the computer, but gain foreign language and other concepts/skills. That just the introduction of a computer in a village/rural town can enable students to learn new things speaks to the power of technology in our societies- Would this be the experience in non-western societies? I think to my years in Senegal. Would the kids of Keur Momar Sarr be engaged?

Here is the link to this presentation...
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

1 comment:

  1. I think to my years in Senegal. Would the kids of Keur Momar Sarr be engaged?

    -- Wouldn't it be cool to find out? What do you think? Do kids in remote villages have a greater degree of curiosity and desire to learn? What else factors into it?

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