Monday, October 4, 2010

Feature: ICT and children - a natural fit

Trinidad and Tobago made a bold move this month when it started distributing free laptop computers to children entering high school for the first time.

It's an investment of more than $80 million for 20,300 computers. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar handed out the first computers on Wednesday, fulfilling a major campaign promise.

It's part of her commitment to educating children and preparing them for the new world where entire libraries are available at the touch of a key and a world of education is waiting to be discovered.

Some of her critics are not impressed.

However research shows that children easily adapt to the new technology especially in places where you would least expect it.

Education scientist Sugata Mitra, realising that the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most, conducted a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, giving children self-supervised access to the web.

Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity.

His experiment has shown that even where there are language and cultural barriers, giving children access to computers proved to be a quantum leap into educating young minds.

Mitra has explained his experiment and talked about the results in a video that's available on the Internet.

We urge you to take a few minutes to watch the video, which is an eye-opener, demonstrating the potential for today's technology in the hands of tomorrow's leaders.

Watch the video here at TED

No comments:

Jai & Sero

Jai & Sero

Our family at home in Toronto 2008

Our family at home in Toronto 2008
Amit, Heather, Fuzz, Aj, Jiv, Shiva, Rampa, Sero, Jai