Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education - 6 views
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dozoran on 25 Sep 12It says that children can learn with internet without any intervention from outside -like a teacher. When the topic is not defined, children can learn what they want. But for some specific topics, they at least need the very first idea -a question, sometimes even a pre-designed system of information and instruction. Are we too much interfering to students' learning process?
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Hatice Çilsalar on 26 Sep 12Thanks for this video. It shows an interesting method but when ı watched this video, some question come up my mind. First of them; where is creativity of instructional methods? In time students can be bored because of sitting on front of a screen for a long time and how can we motivate students effectively? Second one is; how can it be achieved the objectives which requires teachers? for example; social onjectives and values require a role model in teaching enviroment and socialization is an important issue. And also this system requires updates frequently, this is another issue. Finally, moreover someone should orginaze this computer system and design instruction process, in bire there is a teacher or orginazer on planning system in my oppinon.(Am ı more critical? :) )
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Evrim Baran on 27 Sep 12Dincer, thanks for sharing the video. Both you and Hatice raised important questions. I've known Sugata Mitra's work quite some time now and the Hole in the Wall Project. I also investigated similar projects such as One Laptop Per Child and some other similar ones that have emerged in India. Perhaps, these models are encouraging us to question and reflect on teachers' role in the learning process. We might also ask "what it is that we want our children learn" and "how they actually learn certain things". This is also related to Hatice's question on motivation. We will see if theories of instruction will help us answer some of these questions.
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Bilge Aslan on 28 Sep 12First of all thanks for the video. It reminded me the "Fatih Project" in Turkey as well regarding the pre, primary and elementary level students using their own technological access during learning process. It is supposed to be completed at the end of 2013 however the same instructional and motivational questions trigger me to question its function. When we consider th learning as a whole such personal use may turn out to be misuse without interfere but in specific cases such as vocabulary teaching through learner's independent autonomy, I can support the idea. We should be clear about what is the target audience and the issue, though.
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Erdem Uygun on 29 Sep 12Such educational frameworks support the trend of shift from teacher-centeredness to student-centeredness. In the past, when we need to ask something, we asked to our elders- in school, to teachers. Now, we have an additional elder, the internet. It can answer almost anything. In that sense, the impact of the technology can not be ignored. The idea of providing internet access to places that is scarce in terms of teachers is reasonable - which also supports the idea of distance education. Besides, bringing technology is easier and cheaper than bringing a teacher with resources. However, we still need teachers as -cliche but vital term- "facilitators" and regulators in self-learning process. It is necessary for constructivism as well as child-driven education or for any other self-learning methods. Someone is needed for wrapping-up the knowledge gained, for assessing the results, for remedying circumstances that obstruct the learning process, for deciding goals or organizing goals to be attained, and for secure and heuristic browsing on the internet. In that sense, I support the idea of "self organized learning environments" as Mitra offers, but also I contend that there should be teachers around these environments for facilitating. In short, we should not quit important elements of education while trying to make it better.
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Gamze Çetinkaya on 30 Sep 12I believe although computers and instructional softwares are amazing to enhance the effectiveness of instruction, they are not enough. They are always limited. It is impossible to load them all possible questions of students and their responses. Moreover, none of the computers or softwares would be able to fulfill students' emotional and motivational needs. There is also the uniqueness of the students; not all of the students would enjoy a computer-based education. Lastly, as a science educator when I think for my area; it is never the same to make an experiment on computer and in a laboratory. Students learn better when they are actively engaged in an experiment and seethe results with their eyes.