Sugata Mitra is like wayyyyy smart.
He’s a physicist turned educator who has been awarded a million-dollar TED prize to develop his ideas about cloud schools. No, we do not mean that your children will get to ride on a blimp to get to class. We mean our favorite cloud – the digital one.
On stage at TED 2013, Sugata delivered one seriously epic talk on the topic of education. In fact, Sugata eloquently addresses the elephant in the room – tech is changing things, education is no exception.
He argues that although it’s fashionable to say the education system is broken, that’s not the whole truth by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, Sugata points out just how outdated the global educational approach is. In fact, it’s a relic of the bygone days of imperialism. Sheesh – he’s totally right!
He conducted experiments to see what could be learned by leaving children alone with computers.
For example, he put a computer in a hole in the wall in a Delhi slum.
The results are staggering:
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Children used tech to learn English in a matter of months
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Eight year old children reached the same level of computer literacy as office secretaries within nine months
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Kids grades went from 0 per cent to 30 per cent in tests on complex subjects like biotechnology (subjects taught ta decade ahead of schedule
Sugata says it best.
This is the kind of thinking that changes the world.
Here’s to the cloud, and its ‘classrooms’ of future entrepreneurs and free-thinkers.
Enjoy.
David Siddall communicates the benefits of cloud technology and spam filtering for SMBs each day at Australia’s largest independent IT security provider, Mail Guard.
