"The hole in the wall: self organising systems" (with Twitter track) Sugata Mitra at ALT-C 2010
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Not Synced(The hole in the wall: self organising systems in education"
Keynote speech by Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University at "Into something rich and strange" - Making sense of the sea change, the 2010 conference of the Association of Learning Technology (ALT).) -
Not Synced(Session given in Nottingham, UK, on Wednesday 8 September 2010 at 14:00. For information about ALT go to http://www.alt.ac.uk/ .)
Made publicly available by ALT under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/.) -
Not Synced[Applause]
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Not Synced[Sugata Mitra] Thanks very much.
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Not SyncedOne of the - you know, one of the things that is taught in the business schools, in marketing courses,
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Not Syncedis not to raise expectations of the customer.
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Not SyncedBecause after that, you can only go steadily downwards.
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Not SyncedWell, I've sort of optimistically called this talk "The Future of Learning".
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Not SyncedPerhaps it should have been called "A Future of Learning"
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Not Syncedbut it's one of the futures which I think, in the last 11 ears or so,
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Not SyncedI have encountered in many different ways, and that's the story I want to tell you.
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Not SyncedFirst, a little break-down of children on our planet:
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Not SyncedIt's a sort of a personal number - these are difficult numbers to get:
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Not Syncedyou get different numbers from different sources.
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Not SyncedBut I would think that there are about 50 million children on the planet
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Not Syncedwho have more than everything that they need
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Not Syncedfor their lives, for their education, for everything.
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Not SyncedThen there are another about 200 million below that,
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Not Syncedwho have adequate resources.
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Not SyncedAnd below that, there are 750 million
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Not Syncedwho do not have adequate resources.
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Not SyncedSo this is the situation that we're at - we're looking at.
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Not SyncedHere in Britain, I would think that we're dealing with
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Not Syncedthe first two blocks
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Not Syncedand maybe the top slice of that 750 million.
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Not SyncedThat's the impression I get by going around the country.
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Not Synced("When I need to know something, at the time when I need to know it, I can find out in 5 minutes"
(Pre-adolescent, United Kingdon, 2008) -
Not SyncedHere are some sentences that I heard here,
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Not Syncedin various cities, at various times, from various age groups.
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Not Synced"When I need to know something, at the time when I need to know it, I can find out in 5 minutes"
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Not Synced"My father is an engineer, but he doesn'thave a job"
(onscreen: + "8 year old, United Kingdom, 2009") -
Not Synced"Why should I work hard to be a professor like you when I can earn as much as you by driving a bus"
(onscreen + "Adolescent, United Kingdom, 2006) -
Not SyncedSo, we need some answers to these questions,
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Not Syncedyou know, they are important questions for children
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Not Syncedand we don't actually have too many convincing answers.
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Not SyncedWe can give them the academic answer about, you know,
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Not Syncedknowledge and deep understanding and so on and so forth.
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Not SyncedBut these are specific questions.
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Not SyncedWe have to give specific answers.
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Not SyncedOn the other side of the world, we can't use the computer room when we want.
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Not SyncedIt's not allowed.
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Not SyncedThat's from India.
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Not SyncedThe internet is down because the school didn't pay.
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Not SyncedSo, that's the other side of the world.
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Not Synced(Problems of relevance and aspiration - Problems of resources)
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Not SyncedSo then, if you put the problems together,
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Not Syncedthey are the problems of relevance and aspiration
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Not Syncedin the top part of the triangle
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Not SyncedAnd they are the problems of resources at the bottom.
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Not SyncedSo, I will start from 11 years ago -
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Not Synced(There are places on Earth, in every country, where, for various reasons, good schools cannot be built and good teachers cannot or do not want to go...)
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Not Syncedwith this sentence, that there are places on Earth, in every country,
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Not Syncedwhere good schools can't be built and good teachers either will not go or cannot go.
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Not SyncedYou know, when you first see this, it reminds you of the developing world, first of all:
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Not SyncedAfrica, India, China.
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Not SyncedBut think of any country that you know.
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Not SyncedThink of the map
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Not Syncedand think that you have an imaginary pencil.
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Not SyncedWould you not mark out places where you'd say good teachers will not go there?
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Not SyncedSo it is not a developing country problem.
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Not SyncedIt's a global problem.
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Not SyncedUnfortunately, it's an ironic global problem
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Not Syncedbecause those places where the good teachers won't go
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Not Syncedare just the ones where they're needed the most.
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Not SyncedSo, we're stuck in a bind.
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Not SyncedI will show you some figures here.
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Not SyncedNorth Eastern India.
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Not SyncedAs you go further and further away from Delhi on the X axis,
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Not Syncedto 200 km away from Delhi,
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Not Syncedleaving all the ........ [check] behind (4:46)
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Not Syncedthe primary schools drop sharply.
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Not SyncedWhy?
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Not SyncedBecause the teachers, 250 km away,
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Not Syncedif you ask them and ask them this question:
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Not Synced"Would you like to be somewhere else?"
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Not SyncedAnd the answers changed from "Not really" to "Absolutely".
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Not SyncedBy the time you hit 300 km, they say:
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Not Synced"You know, if only I could get a job in Delhi,
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Not Syncedthere's better healthcare, better entertainment, more shopping, ec."
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Not SyncedThen I came to England and I thought to myself:
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Not Synced"Now I will not find this problem, because it's much more uniformly developed."
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Not SyncedSo then, I should expect to see a flat distribution of primary school results.
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Not SyncedWhen I looked at the numbers, that was not the case.
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Not SyncedThere were schools doing very badly and there were schools doing very well.
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Not SyncedSo I started looking for relationships and very quickly found one in North Eastern England.
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Not SyncedThe density of council housing correlates with the primary school results
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Not Synced- the GCSE results in this case.
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Not SyncedSo, the more the density of council housing,
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Not Syncedthe worse the results seem to be.
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Not SyncedAnd this is pretty significant, as you can see from that line.
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Not SyncedIt's not a spurious [check 6:08] thing, it's pretty sharply correlated.
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Not SyncedSo .... [check] to those, you know, highly dense govenrment housing areas,
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Not Syncedand I went to those schools
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Not Syncedand, surprisingly, I heard the same thing that I heard in India.
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Not SyncedI asked the teachers "Would you consider working in another school?"- same -
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Not Syncedas soon as you go into the high density council areas:
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Not Synced"Yes, it's very dangerous here, you know, it's not a nice area,
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Not Syncedthe children are very rough: I wouldn't mind."
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Not SyncedThen there are a few teachers who say "No: that's my challenge, I want to be here."
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Not SyncedBut not all.
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Not SyncedSo you do have that problem.
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Not SyncedThe remoteness in India was geographic.
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Not SyncedThe remoteness here was socio-economic.
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Not Synced(1999-2001 The Hole In The Wall)
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Not SyncedSo, back to 1999.
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Not Synced1999, in New Delhi, the rich children all have computers.
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Not SyncedTheir - it's a new toy, their parents have spent a lot of money,
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Not Syncedupward of £1000 to buy them computers.
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Not SyncedThey are all very good with their computers,
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Not Syncedall their parents say their children are geniuses
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Not Syncedbecause they are so good with their computers.
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Not SyncedDown in the slums, the children haven't heard of a computer,
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Not Syncedthey don't even know what it is
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Not Syncedand they're not going to make it, because
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Not Syncedno computer teacher is ever going to go into the slums to teach.
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Not SyncedSo, back in 1999, I tried an experiment.
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Not SyncedI made an ATM-like structure into the wall of a slum,
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Not Syncedwhich eventually got called The Hole In The Wall
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Not Syncedand put on the English internet
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Not Syncedand left it there.
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Not SyncedAnd very quickly saw that the children were beginning to teach themselves
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Not Syncedhow to use the computer.
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Not Synced[video: children's voices]
This happened everywhere, -
Not Syncedeven in the deserts of Rajahstan.
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Not SyncedHere's the desert where of all things, in four hours,
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Not Syncedthe children were using the sound recorder
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Not Syncedto sing into the computer and listen themselves sing.
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Not SyncedBy themselves.
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Not SyncedDown in South India, they were downloading games from disney.com.
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Not SyncedThis game is to assemble a camera and then take a photograph.
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Not SyncedSomething that urban children would do all the time,
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Not Syncedbut remember, these children have seen a computer only a few days ago,
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Not Syncedor a few months ago.
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Not SyncedThey don't know any English,
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Not Syncedthey've taught themselves whatever English they needed to do --
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Not Syncedto be able to do all this.
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Not SyncedSo I started to document this whole process
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Not Syncedand to measure on a computer literacy scale
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Not Syncedwhat happens to groups of children if you just leave a computer with them.
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Not SyncedAnd the numbers were interesting.
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Not SyncedIt was a straight upward curve, reaching about 42 on that scale,
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Not Syncedwhich is what an office secretary can do.
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Not SyncedIf you gave that test today to an office secretary here,
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Not Syncedshe would get about 42, 45 percent.
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Not SyncedSo they were reaching that on their own in nine months.
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Not Synced(writing on video read aloud later)
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Not SyncedThis was the conclusion from that section of the work,
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Not Syncedthat groups of children can learn to use computers and the internet on their own,
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Not Syncedirrespective of who or where they are.
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Not SyncedSo it didn't matter what language they spoke,
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Not Syncedit didn't matter how rich or poor they were.
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Not SyncedAnd I tried this in India in hundreds and hundreds of villages,
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Not SyncedI tried it in Cambodia, I tried it in Africa,
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Not Syncedand everywhere, we got the same result.
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Not SyncedSo in those days, this was an important result
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Not Syncedabout computer literacy not having to be taught.
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Not SyncedSo, I could then say with some amount of confidence
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Not Syncedthat it doesn't matter if your school doesn't have an excellent computer teacher,
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Not Syncedyou can still achieve the same results by simply allowing the children access.
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Not SyncedBut around this time, something different started to happen.
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Not Synced(Lessons from The Hole In The Wall)
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Not SyncedIn the schools where these computers had been placed,
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Not Syncedin the schools in India, many of them --
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Not Syncedmany of them started to report improvements in English and mathematics scores.
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Not SyncedI couldn't quite understand
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Not Synced- actually English, science and mathematics scores -
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Not SyncedI couldn't quite understand what was the reason for that,
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Not Syncedbecause as far as I could tell,
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Not Syncedthe children were continuously playing games all the time.
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Not SyncedBut then, I wasn't there to watch all the while.
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Not SyncedSo I started doing a set of experiments to see
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Not Syncedwhat could be the reasons why these schools were going up.
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Not SyncedThe first experiment was in Hyderabad.
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Not SyncedIt's a big, sprawling, South Indian city.
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Not SyncedHyderabad has a - hundreds of little private schools,
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Not Syncednot for rich people, but for poor people.
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Not SyncedAnd the reason why these really ramshackle little private schools make money
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Not Syncedis because they promise to teach English.
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Not SyncedAnd for that segment of Hyderabad society,
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Not Syncedlearning English makes a huge difference to the kind of lives
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Not Syncedthat these children will live later on.
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Not SyncedSo the parents, the poor parents, pay their, whatever,
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Not Syncedusually around £5 - £3 to £5 pounds a month
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Not Syncedto send their children to these private schools.
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Not SyncedThe schools try to do their best to teach English.
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Not SyncedBut the problem that I spoke about prevents them.
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Not SyncedGood, native-language English school teachers
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Not Syncedare not going to go and teach in the slums of Hyderabad.
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Not SyncedSo, they don't get native-language speakers.
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Not SyncedThe children begin to copy the accents of the local, Telugu-speaking
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Not Synced- Telugu is the language there -
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Not SyncedTelugu-speaking teachers.
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Not SyncedTelugu accents are extremely hard to understand.
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Not SyncedSo when the children come out of school,
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Not Syncedthey know a reasonable amount of English:
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Not Syncedtheir spelling is good, their handwriting is good,
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Not Syncedtheir grammar is good.
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Not SyncedBut when they go for a job interview, the interviewer says:
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Not Synced"Your English may be good, but I don't understand what you're saying."
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Not SyncedSo they don't get the job.
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Not SyncedSo here was a problem that could not be solved by human teachers,
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Not Syncedbecause human teachers were not available.
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Not SyncedSo I had to use technology.
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Not SyncedI looked at what's available
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Not Syncedand I must say I wasn't very happy with it.
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Not SyncedI looked at all sorts of programs that pretend to teach English.
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Not SyncedIn those days - 2002 -
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Not Syncedthere were none that specifically taught about pronunciation.
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Not SyncedSo what I did finally was, I got a PC
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Not Syncedand I loaded a speech-to-text software on it,
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Not Syncedyou know, the kind that you can get for free now with Windows.
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Not SyncedWhat that does is that you take a microphone,
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Not Syncedyou plug it into the PC,
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Not Syncedyou speak into the microphone
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Not Syncedand the PC will type out whatever youre tell-- whatever you're saying,
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Not Syncedprovided it understands you.
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Not SyncedThe system needs to be trained in the voice that it is expected to understand.
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Not SyncedWhat I did was I bought this computer,
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Not SyncedI put in the software, I trained it in a neutral English accent.
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Not Synced(The Hyderabad Experiment, 2002)
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Not SyncedAnd then I blocked out the training function
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Not Syncedand gave it to a group of children in a private school in Hyderabad
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Not Syncedand they spoke into it, and the computer started to type out complete nonsense.
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Not SyncedSo the children laughed and said:
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Not Synced"It doesn't understand anything, what we're saying."
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Not SyncedSo I said to them: "Well, I'll leave this with you for two months.
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Not SyncedYou have to make yourselves understood to the computer."
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Not SyncedNow, this is where the new method started forming in my mind,
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Not Syncedbecause the children then asked: "How do we do that?"
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Not SyncedAnd I said to them, with great honesty:
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Not Synced"I don't know.
[laughter] -
Not SyncedAnd anyway, I'm leaving."
[laughter] -
Not SyncedSo -- so I left them.
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Not SyncedI left them. What they did was incredible.
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Not SyncedThey downloaded pieces of software,
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Not Syncedthey downloaded films,
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Not Syncedthey downloaded The Speaking Oxford Dictionary,
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Not Syncedwhich I didn't know existed,
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Not Syncedand they started to practice in groups.
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Not SyncedIn other words, not only were they teaching themselves,
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Not Syncedthey had invented the pedagogy for -- by which to teach themselves
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Not Syncedbecause I hadn't told them anything.
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Not SyncedAnd the results were remarkable, to say the least.
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Not Synced[Girl] Ian, he's my cousin. [check]
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Not Synced[Text to speech] Ian he's my cousin.
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Not Synced[Girl's recorded voice] Ian he's my cousin.
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Not Synced[Mitra] Real flat English accents and you should
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Not Synced-- I don't have the video here of her speaking before the experiment
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Not Syncedand she was barely understandable.
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Not SyncedSo they had changed their accents. I published the work.
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Not SyncedAnd at that time I began to realize
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Not Syncedthat children perhaps would achieve educational objectives on their own
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Not Syncedif they had a reason to.
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Not SyncedWhich will bring us to the West in a little while,
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Not Syncedbecause in the West, the problem is that they don't seem to have a reason
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Not Syncedwhy they should do these things.
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Not Synced(Children ...and some surprises)
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Not SyncedWell, some surprises in that period from 2002 to 2006:
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Not SyncedWell, to start with I got a message from Sir Arthur C. Clarke [check]
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Not Syncedwho was living in Colombo in those days
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Not Syncedand he had heard of my original experiment.
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Not SyncedHe was interest and - you know, he was in .... [check].
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Not SyncedSo I went to Colombo to meet him
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Not Syncedand he said two very interesting things.
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Not SyncedThe first thing he said was that a teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.
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Not SyncedOK, now, that's a double-edged...
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Not SyncedSo, a teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.
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Not SyncedThe second thing he said was that
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Not Syncedif children are interested, then education happens.
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Not SyncedI then started to put in different educational objectives
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Not Syncedin a way that I'll describe in a moment,
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Not Syncedinto India, into Cambodia and into Africa,
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Not Syncedto see what else would happen
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Not Syncedafter the children had taught themselves to use a computer. (16:31)
- Title:
- "The hole in the wall: self organising systems" (with Twitter track) Sugata Mitra at ALT-C 2010
- Description:
-
"The hole in the wall: self organising systems in education" Keynote speech by Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University (Twitter track by agreement with Sugata) at "Into something rich and strange" - making sense of the sea change, the 2010 conference of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT). Session given in Nottingham, UK, on Wednesday 8 September 2010, at 14.00. For information about ALT go to http://www.alt.ac.uk/. Made publicly available by ALT under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/2.0/uk/.
- Team:
- Captions Requested
- Duration:
- 54:00
Claude Almansi edited English, British subtitles for "The hole in the wall: self organising systems" (with Twitter track) Sugata Mitra at ALT-C 2010 | ||
Claude Almansi added a translation |