from a hole in a wall to Granny Clouds

From a hole in a wall to Granny Clouds

notes from Sugrata Mitra's keynote at BlackBoard World, 2013:

And now we find ourselves at journey's end...

Sugatra Mitra ("the hole in the wall") opened with a metaphor -why his project was "minimally invasive" vs using helicopters, underscoring that the operation of said helicopters (by children) is dangerous ( I wonder if he's heard about the proliferation of drone pilot schools in the .edu space).

Findings of the project: children could achieve the average skill levels of a secretary in a mere nine months. The bullies may dominate initial monopolization of the computer, but then ironically are unable to understand its actual use. The secondary effects of game playing are language acquisition skills and developing search strategies (to find new games!).

Again and again Dr. Mitra provided examples of utterly startling learning gains by students who were offered next to no scaffolding or prompts, instead communally developing their own pedagogical approach to I treating with and mastering g the subject matter.

Even more interesting, when using a method of encouragement (but not prompts) labelled the "grandmother method" Learning gains jumped to an amazing 50%.

It appears that these self-organizing learning environments can be effective; but to push past the 30% mark, the emotional support and reward system of the "granny cloud" (actual grandmothers providing a surrogate service of positive affirmation and praise).