Agent of Change: Sugata Mitra
Professor Sugata Mitra is an Indian scientist who carried out an experiment that we can all learn from. This experiment was called the ‘Hole in the Wall’ and it helped lots of kids to learn even though they couldn’t read or write in English.
Sugata Mitra is an agent of change. An agent of change is a person who changes people’s lives. As a scientist he wanted to find out if kids could learn without a teacher. Professor Mitra didn’t use lots of computers because he wanted the kids to help each other and learn together.
The computers helped the kids learn how to speak English as they slowly learned how to use the computer. He tried his experiment in South Africa, Italy and other parts of India. Each time the kids were able to understand what they were doing. The children in Italy worked out that they could use the computer to translate the English words to words from their own language.
Professor Mitra thought carefully about a way he could keep this learning going so he introduced the ‘Granny Cloud’ to support the kids learning. The ‘grannies’ used praise and questions to help the kids learn but they didn’t tell them the answers. The kids in different countries liked talking to the grannies on Skype and were happy to show them their work.
His experiment shows that maybe one day in the future teachers may not need to be in the classroom.
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