No Teachers, Just Tablets; Ethiopian Kids Teach Themselves
David Talbot writes at MIT Technology Review.com about an experiment by the One Laptop Per Child organization:
Earlier this year, OLPC workers dropped off closed boxes containing the tablets, taped shut, with no instruction. "I thought the kids would play with the boxes. Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, found the on-off switch ... powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child, per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs in the village, and within five months, they had hacked Android," Negroponte said. "Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera, and they figured out the camera, and had hacked Android."
Loved this:
After several months, the kids in both villages were still heavily engaged in using and recharging the machines, and had been observed reciting the "alphabet song," and even spelling words. One boy, exposed to literacy games with animal pictures, opened up a paint program and wrote the word "Lion."
More:
Elaborating later on Negroponte's hacking comment, Ed McNierney, OLPC's chief technology officer, said that the kids had gotten around OLPC's effort to freeze desktop settings. "The kids had completely customized the desktop--so every kids' tablet looked different. We had installed software to prevent them from doing that," McNierney said. "And the fact they worked around it was clearly the kind of creativity, the kind of inquiry, the kind of discovery that we think is essential to learning.""If they can learn to read, then they can read to learn," Negroponte said (see "Emtech Preview: Another Way to Think About Learning").
In an interview after his talk, Negroponte said that while the early results are promising, reaching conclusions about whether children could learn to read this way would require more time. "If it gets funded, it would need to continue for another a year and a half to two years to come to a conclusion that the scientific community would accept," Negroponte said. "We'd have to start with a new village and make a clean start."
Amy, have you ever done any research on "Unschooling", or the Sudbury Valley Model? This sounds a bit like that.
NicoleK at October 31, 2012 1:02 AM
Give them a bit longer and they'll be writing Android apps.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 31, 2012 7:01 AM
I don't know where I heard this but it always stuck out to me...
Necessity breeds innovation. (or something like that)
Basically, where theres a will, there's a way. I hope that this study gets funded. It could start paving the way for the beaurocratic system that we have in place in the states now to change. Assuming the unions and politicians allow it.
Sabrina at October 31, 2012 10:14 AM
NicoleK, that might be the...free school I heard Peter Gray talk about at an ev psych conference a few years back. Or another version of it.
Forget the name of that one. Will have to look it up and come back after I get another hour done on my book. (I have writing rules I have to go by! I'm a stern self-disciplinarian, especially lately, lest I be late for my book deadline.)
Amy Alkon at October 31, 2012 12:28 PM
Actually, it is -- he called it by its location (the Framingham school) in his talk, but it is the Sudbury School.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/200808/children-educate-themselves-iv-lessons-sudbury-valley
Related blog item with his work at the bottom (on mixed-age play):
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/08/30/mommy_and_daddy.html
Amy Alkon at October 31, 2012 12:32 PM
What a waste of tablets. Should've dropped off boxes of condoms.
Vic Kelley at October 31, 2012 5:41 PM
Basically, where theres a will, there's a way. I hope that this study gets funded. It could start paving the way for the beaurocratic system that we have in place in the states now to change. Assuming the unions and politicians allow it.
Oh, goody. Just as I'd like to see all public-school liberal advocates send their kids exclusively to public school, I'd like to see libertarian school advocates send their kids to a shed with no teachers and an iPad.
If it's so fabulous -- you go first.
What a waste of tablets. Should've dropped off boxes of condoms.
Start in America, as far as I'm concerned. Charity begins at home.
Kevin at October 31, 2012 11:22 PM
Personally I think this is great, I also think this country need to go about doing more to foster education while a childs brain is still growing and forming connections as opposed to waiting until that period of development is passed.
Take typing for example, when PCs became and pletiful as typewritters to the point that most offices had everyone using one at one point if the day or another typing used to be a collge course.
By the time I was an 8th grader typing was a 3 week course.
By the time my youngest brother was five he had taught himself to type playing games and bouncing round the net. Mt neice was better at texting as a three year old than I am today
lujlp at November 1, 2012 8:30 AM
This is similar to the work of Sugata Mitra - he put ruggedized PCs in Indian slums and got a similar result.
TED talks by Mitra and Negroponte:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html
Ben David at November 1, 2012 9:51 AM
Is anyone else amused by this guys name? A guy named Negroponte decides to do a bunch of research in ethiopia. LOL!
Jim Jones at November 1, 2012 9:37 PM
By the time my youngest brother was five he had taught himself to type playing games and bouncing round the net. Mt neice was better at texting as a three year old than I am today
Groovy. I'm TOTALLY on board with all this.
Seriously. Take all school-related expenses off my tax bill -- teachers, buildings, maintenance, books, insurance, lunches -- and I'll be the first to be in line to write a check for the first iPad. The 128 GB model. I'm a sport.
Give me that opportunity to have nothing more to do with your children's education ever in my lifetime, and I'm on it.
I don't care if you teach them about Noah's ark or Noah Wyle. That's your business. As a parent, you know best. The iPad comes with no strings attached -- other than the fact that I never have to spend another cent on your child's education.
You won't need public schools any more. You won't need vouchers You'll have everything you need right there. Because your kids will have the tools they have in Ethopia, and they're all above-average.
Show me where the line is for this deal. My credit card is itching.
Kevin at November 2, 2012 11:46 PM
Leave a comment