[url=http://solesandsomes.wikispaces.com/A+bit+about+SOLE+%26+SOM]SOLE & SOME[/url]
Self Organizing Learning Environments & Self Organized Mediation Environments
A Note for all those interested in the Project
We are overwhelmed and grateful that so many of you all over the world have offered to help with interacting with children over the Internet! Many of you have also evinced a desire to know a little more about the project as a whole apart from the story reading and interaction with children. So we’ve put together a little note and look forward to collaborating with you on this project in many different ways. The project keeps evolving in fascinating ways through this collaborative journey. Thank you all!
How it all began:
At first it was just a germ of an idea born of observations way back in the mid 1980’s at home and around in conversations with other people interested in how children learn and their education that made Sugata Mitra want to see just how far and where this ‘self-organized’ learning could go. There are many tales to tell of how all this came into being and you could access many of these on the net. But for the time being let’s cut a long story short….
The work before SOLE & SOME:
Sugata Mitra’s earlier work through the Hole in the Wall experiments showed that groups of children given shared digital resources can learn to use computers and the Internet and go on to learn almost anything on their own that they have an interest in. They do not seem to require adult supervision.
Further work showed that groups of children with access to computer and related technology are capable of successfully answering examinations without traditional schooling. Since successfully completing school is such a widespread concern the project took on the task of studying whether such self-organised learning can enable groups of children to successfully answer government Board final examinations and be helped to obtain their school certificates using such “Minimally Invasive” methods.
SOLEs have been specially designed and these continue to be modified. These have been built in several locations to facilitate self-organized learning – a place where children can work in groups access the internet and other software follow up on a class activity or project or take them where their interests lead them.
The key in all this is “open and free access”. Of course there are lot of hiccups along the way…. In most of the places there are so many children so little time just one ‘room’ and some resistance to the idea!
But we have moved along and the response of the children and many of the schools & teachers has been insightful and heartening.
New discoveries made and shared everyday skills practiced and mastered confidence and self worth levels rising; we see all this and much more.
One of the other key concerns that many parents educators even the children themselves had to do with learning English. So from the beginning there was specific software uploaded for the children to be able to learn the English language and use it on a regular basis. By the way that is where the idea of ‘Grannies’ reading stories to the children came in! Most of us learnt our mother tongue so naturally through stories told to us in our childhood by loving parents and grandparents and we wanted for these children to have some of that experience too!
The SOLE Facility:
Currently Project SOLE is up and running in 10 locations in India [with an 11th one due to start any day now!] mostly in Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh [one is in a rural area of Maharashtra].
Typically a SOLE is a ‘room’ located in the school premises clearly visible to all those who pass [that’s the reason we use huge glass windows!]. In the process we ensure a transparency that facilitates children’s safety as well as unobtrusive monitoring of the activities inside the SOLE.
There are usually 9 computers in clusters of 3 [although we are experimenting with other arrangements] which facilitates the children’s interaction across computer terminals as well within their group. A key factor is that there are usually 4 children per computer working or playing together you will often find many more gathered behind standing around watching what’s going on.
And then… SOME!
Well to come back to the idea that started as “grannies reading fairytales to children over Skype”. The very first explorations told us it could well be a lot more than that! And thanks to the overwhelming response from so many of you it looks like the idea could be taken ahead.
We mentioned a while earlier that children didn’t seem to need adult supervision. However this does not mean that they do not need ‘benign mentors’. Indeed is it not the role of grandparents uncles aunts [and sometimes parents and teachers too!] to be benign and friendly mentors instead of just ‘supervisors’? Most of us remember the days of being ‘spoilt’ by our ‘mentors’ with fondness. Those were perhaps our best learning experiences.
It seems from your response that there are a very large number of people in the world willing to give a little of their time and be ‘mentors’ for children who need it. Imagine a world where thousands of such mentors / mediators are available to a child over the Internet. Not a typed or texted presence but a real face-to-face conversational presence. A world where the children interact with who they wish – for entertainment for help with work for emotional support or just for a chat.
This is the group of SOME volunteers that is emerging – a group of people who would make themselves available over Skype for say one hour a week. We would then schedule ‘sessions’ with schools in India to start with when a ‘mediator’ will interact with a group of children. This could involve reading stories conversing singing and all those things friendly people do with children.
R & D:
In this process we expect to see whether such interactions will improve the children’s English their social interaction skills value systems and school performance. These are children who have very little and for whom such interactions would be unique and enriching experiences. We are trying to raise some research funding [Perhaps we can then pay you for your time]to set up a research project to monitor and measure the children’s progress and will report on the results of these interactions periodically to you.
Get in touch:
Please do think about this and if you are convinced about the need for such an experiment and wish to be a part of it fill in and send the enclosed form by email to
datasome@gmail.com
We will then send you all the instructions needed to set up a Skype facility at your residence. You will need a web camera and a broadband connection and it should not cost you more that about 15 Pounds a month to get this if you don’t have one already. We can then organize a brief trial session and take you one step ahead on the road to be a mediator for some of the neediest children in the world. We will send you other information pertaining to the groups and settings in which you will be interacting with the children as we go along.
The SOME Team
Sugata Suneeta Mabel
You can also contact us at any of the following addresses:
· Prof. Sugata Mitra
Professor of Educational Technology
School of ECLS Newcastle University Newcastle upon Tyne UK
Email: sugata.mitra@gmail.com or sugata.mitra@newcastle.ac.uk
· Dr. Suneeta Kulkarni
Psychology & Child Development
Research Manager – Project SOLE – India
Email: suneeta.kulkarni@gmail.com or kulkarnisuneeta@yahoo.co.in
One of the requirements for an application to Google Teacher
Academy is to create a one minute video on classroom innovation…
Here’s what I learned:
* You don’t need to know anything about video to create one.
* Process is far more important then product when it comes to learning (We should always assess that rather than the end result)
* If something is worthwhile to you obstacles can be overcome.
* You can make up for lack of skill if you are resourceful.
* A cartoon can deliver a powerful message… useful when time is limited!
* Support and encouragement can come from interesting sometimes unexpected places