Cloud Primary School to create a fair competitive environment

Sir Ken Robinson's speech "School stifling creativity" was the most viewed video of TED in 2012. This is a testament to the degree of attention paid to education and, on the other hand, to the current educational system that has lagged behind the times.

The road to education reform is difficult. However, with the development of http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/5739.html > Internet Technology, we can make up for the inadequacy of existing education in many ways. The famous Khan School is a useful exploration of the new type of education. The Khan school's founder, in his new book "The One World Parochial House", expressed his expectations for educational reform.

"Existing schools can move in this direction, no longer focus on teaching-based courses, or cancel them." Let the students participate more in research, cooperate in the vast world, and increase the number of institutions that have a broad background and a deep desire to instruct students. ”

Sugata Mitra, the winner of this year's TED prize, also wants to reform education. He hopes to advance the "self-organization learning" approach to education and set up cloud schools. This is not entirely novel, but the process of his ideas is still interesting. The Wired website reports.

Sugata Mitra, a professor at Newcastle University, began his career in New Delhi, India. He earned a Ph. D. in physics and then chose the software industry for a living. In order to work, he bought a computer. He forbade his son to play because the price of the machine was very expensive. One day his son helped him solve a computer problem. It surprised him and thought his son was a genius.

One day, as he passed through the slums of New Delhi, he suddenly realized that the children of the slums also had the spark of genius. He made a special experiment to confirm his idea. Inside a wall of the slum, he placed a computer, wired and mouse, started the machine, and left. In addition to a layer of plastic cover, the computer is not protected. Sugata Mitra said, "I left it to the wolves, knowing it would be smashed, torn apart, sold." I leave it, just to see what happens. "

But when he came back, he found that the children were browsing the English pages.

One colleague told Sugata Mitra that this could be because students who learn software development teach children. So Mitra the same experiment in a village 200 miles from New Delhi, where software developers were almost impossible to pass through.

Two months later, Mitra returned to the village. He found that the children were playing games and browsing the web. A child said to him, "We want a better mouse, and a faster processor." "Another complaint from the children is that you have given us a machine that can only work in English, and we have to learn English by ourselves." ”

Mitra called the test "wall hole test" (Hole in the Wall). From the experiment, he understood the concept of self-study for the first time.

He started his own approach in primary schools in India and then extended it to the UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and Latin America. In the UK, Mitra employs many retired female teachers, calling them "granny Cloud (Granny Cloud)". The women teachers contacted the students via Skype. The teaching method is the question-and-answer style, the children are mainly self-study, when they encounter difficulties, teachers provide help. "It only requires bandwidth, cooperation and encouragement," Mitra said.

Mitra plans to use the TED bonuses he received to build a "cloud primary school". The school is managed by the volunteer teachers and the various facilities are automated. He hoped that "cloud primary school" would become a supplement to traditional education, "I will make it into a safe internet café and children can learn good English." At this stage I can't say that it's going to replace the school. "

If this form succeeds, he will push his ideas further. His description of his efforts is "creating a level playing field".

"Creating fair competition is what this world lacks." "he said.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)