Sugata Mitra- A School In the Cloud

How does this Ted Talk make you think about your role with young people in an online environment? 

I know children are curious. When we spark their curiosity, learning starts to happen. I was perplexed by Sugata Mitra’s  ideas at first because I felt like he was getting at the elimination of teachers. Let’s just use computers to teach students and teachers are not needed for learning to happen. But in a way, it is true. The students will learn with or without us. The technology peaks their interests and to learn they need a question and encouragement. He goes on to discuss how teachers are mediators and guides. Teachers are there to encourage like the “granny” and pose questions. A question begins an investigation and the students, without the teachers help, go off and try to answer it. The teacher is watching over for health and safety. Learning happens when the students collaborate. In all of the video examples he showed us, we see this. 

I know when I was evaluated the administrators were looking for less teacher talk and more student collaboration. They wanted me to just teach a mini lesson, compose a question, and allow the students to come up with an answer. I remember planning math word problems and the students had to work together to solve them as I was walking around the room monitoring and questioning groups. Our job is to allow them to explore and not just to give them all the answers. 

The one thing I think that Sugata Mitra is missing is that human connection piece. A computer and a teacher as a guide is not enough to meet all the needs of a child. They need to be nurtured, learn social skills, learn to have conversations with others, and learn to be kind. I think just giving them words of encouragement is not going to fill that need.