Happy reading!
SATURDAY, JULY 13, 2013
Let’s look back at some past work:
1. Groups of children can
learn to use a computer and the Internet by themselves, under certain
conditions described a little later. This is a finding from a set of
experiments between 1999 – 2004, often called the ‘hole in the wall’
experiments.
2. There are places all over
the planet where it is difficult or impossible to build schools.
3. There are places all over
the world where good teachers cannot, or do not wish to go.
4. Children who know how to
read can use the Internet in groups to research and answer questions far ahead
of their traditional curriculum.
5. This kind of learning is a
‘self organizing system’ in the technical sense of those words. It happens in a
‘minimally invasive’ environment and appears to be a ‘emergent
phenomenon’, again, in the technical sense of those words.
6. The emergence of learning
in children from a chaotic, self organized situation seems to be helped by the
occasional presence of an admiring, interested, but not necessarily
knowledgeable, adult or adults.
7. Reading comprehension is a
key requirement for this kind (perhaps any kind) of learning
8. We don’t know, but can ask,
whether children in groups can learn to read by themselves. This question is
courtesy Nicholas Negroponte. We could also ask if children in groups can read
at higher levels of comprehension than individually.
Is it possible to put all this
together into a learning system for children in need?
If you give children, below the age of 13, access to a computer
connected to the Internet, they learn how to use it. However, there are some conditions
for this to happen.
1. The computer has to be in a
safe, public place so that parents will let children come there. A playground,
for example, is a good place. Public visibility is important so that people can
see what the children are doing and the children know this.
2. There should be no adult
directing them, children don’t like having people breathing down their necks
watching their every move.
3. About four or five children
with one computer seems to be the optimal number.
4. They should know that they
are free to do what they like and there is no pre-selected activity. What they
choose to do is a group decision. Usually they find and choose to play games.
If you then ensure the computer is in
working order, children begin to tire of games in a month or so and look for
other activity. Painting is a very popular activity and they learn to save and
load pictures in the process. Some children learn to look for and install games
from the Internet. In the process they discover Google.
If they can read sufficiently well in English or some other language
that is adequately represented on the Internet, such as Spanish, Italian,
Chinese etc., children begin to search for answers to questions. These
questions are usually about games, but in the process of looking up these words
related to games, they stumble upon other sites. In about six months time, they
begin to understand keyword searching.
Some begin to search for homework related materials while others look
for news or sports. I have seen some look for a job for their fathers, a
horoscope forecast for their family, or medicines for the elderly. They
must have considered these questions important.
If a group of children find a question that they think is important,
they will search for an answer. On the Internet, this will usually result in
finding good information. Groups of children, in the presence of good
information will discuss possible answers. Most of the time, such a process
results in the emergence of good answers. A by-product of this process is
learning.
We can bring this process into classrooms through Self Organized
Learning Environments (SOLEs). This is now fairly well understood and accepted
by many teachers around the world.
We can ‘beam’ people to places where they cannot physically go by using
the Internet. The ‘Granny Cloud’ is a group of mediators that are Skyped into
schools. It has been in existence since 2009 and is currently (2013), quite
active.
Can the SOLE and the Granny Cloud come together?
Well, we have some problems:
1. Are SOLEs really self-organizing? When conducted in a classroom, children are asked to make groups (by themselves), each group is given an Internet connection and they are asked to answer a question. We allow them to move around, change groups, talk and look at each other’s work. But it is we who are telling them to do all this. Are we moving away from the chaotic self-organization of the hole in the wall? (this question is courtesy C.Y. Gopinath). We could argue that an ‘attractor’ or a ‘seed’ is required for emergent behavior to happen in a self organizing system. But is the adult organizing a SOLE just a seed? Or is this adult the traditional teacher in disguise. Is it fake? This is a troublesome question
2. If self organized learning is an alternative to traditional teaching, then how is the Granny Cloud of any use? Are we not bringing traditional teaching back, disguised with some clever technology? To my mind the Granny Cloud was to improve children’s English, but did I actually mean to ‘teach’ English? “The first granny said, "How did you do that?!" She …sold them on their own power. Then (on the Granny Cloud) you said, "sorts everything out." I hope you misspoke. I hope your granny cloud does nothing of the sort. I hope they don't work one-on-one with struggling learners because that would take us back to the empire.” wrote Thomas Garrod in an email to me.
3. None of the original holes
in the wall are in working condition. Payal Arora pointed this out, several years
ago. Technical sustainability is a big problem, often confused with the
sustainability or the usability of the method of self organized learning.
The TED prize gives us the opportunity to sort all this out and get some
answers.
Schools in the Cloud must be sustainable facilities that provide
unsupervised self organized learning environments to children. The role of the
Cloud Granny reverts to the admiring adult, who sometimes asks a question, but
mostly observes and records learning as it happens.
But what about reading comprehension? I don’t know. The eMediators
will have to tell me how to do this, as we progress. This will be our central
research question
The role of the Granny Cloud will be somewhat different when they are
remotely in charge of a School in the Cloud. In addition to developing one or
more approaches to how they will interact with the children, they will also
have access to much of the hardware in the facility. They will eventually be
able to turn the lights on or off, check the batteries in solar powered
systems, look anywhere in the facility, and, perhaps, ‘walk’ around through
multiple cameras.
“A session is not a lesson”, Jackie Barrow had once said. That just
about sums it up.
Seven facilities will be set up over the next year or so. Five will be
in India ranging from very remote villages to urban slums and the urban middle
class. Two will be set up in England, in relatively affluent areas with
excellent schools. What we do in each of them will, I think, emerge, as we go
along.
What else can one do when
studying emergent phenomena?
My thoughts on what he has written…
The type of teacher
required to run a SOLE is not your typical classroom teacher. They must be
willing to trust the instincts of the students in their class. They must be
willing to overlook conventional roles and routines and simply become an
observer, or a silent evaluator. To truly do a SOLE justice they must allow the
students to follow their instincts. In my class the students came up with the questions,
formed the groups, monitored the groups, and developed presentations. The only
factor during the research were time constraints, which we learned to work
around.
Teachers are required to
impart knowledge, but not necessarily at the time of the SOLE. I have bitten my
tongue many times this year as they asked me questions. My question back is
always, “What do you think?” followed by “Why.” They always reach a solution
themselves and not always my choice but a solution that works. I let them take
the lead, run with it and make the decisions. The students always performed well,
made sure everyone in the group was involved in the research and presentation
and made sure everyone was able to answer questions.
I would argue that reading
comprehension grows very nicely in a SOLE as the students share the reading and
discussion of what they have read. My lowest students were reading at grade
level when we finished on the last day of June. In my experience reading
comprehension improved immensely because the students were engaged in their
research. They asked the right questions and discussed the impact of those
questions. They spent time examining some questions from various view points,
trying to see all the possible answers.
I would disagree with the
idea that SOLE as performed in classrooms are teacher directed. Teaching using SOLE does not have to involve
direct teaching during the SOLE. Traditional teaching is there to supplement
the learning by providing insights and advancements to what they are doing
separate from the SOLE. The discussions around the topics develop through
models about speaking, being respectful, explaining what you are saying,
providing examples, taking turns, and listening acutely to what is being said.
The one unexpected by-product of
using SOLE was that the students themselves realized that their understanding
of all the other students changed for the better. They were able to see each
person as an individual instead of being someone else who was there in the
classroom. They got to know each other better and became more tolerant and
understanding of the idiosyncrasies of the other students. What were thought of
before as inappropriate behaviours were now understood and discouraged. SOLE
built a community in a way I had not expected. They knew it and are very proud
of it. I was impressed with it.
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