Self-organized learning: School in the Cloud

Mitra Sugata provided an excellent proposition for a concept he termed "school in the cloud." I was recommended to watch his presentation on TED by a friend. Not only entertaining, he presented some amazing ideas he discovered while doing a test on the potential and learning ability of children in rural India. His results called into question the nature of our educational system, but contextualized it as an issue with being outdated rather than broken.  While we all tend to agree on issues of the system, particularly the (over)use of standardized testing, our attention is directed to find the solution in a change of focus from the problem of the system to remembering what purpose the system was intended to serve.  This, my friends, is the key. We need to put education back in the hands of the people and this can be done by designing the digital classroom.

Children using Hole-in-the-Wall computer

The issue with the system is not what we have or don't have, but the purpose it's meant to serve.  We teach math, history and science and train children to regurgitate facts they may or may not ever need again so they can pass the same tests nationwide for years and years. But for what?  What happens after school ends and we are left with a generation of identical copies?  Of course children sit in class and sleep and stare when given monotonous information for no apparent reason.  How many times did we ask/hear in class "but when will I EVER use this?"  A kid may wonder, why do I need to know 2+2=4?  But come lunch time and that cookie is $4 and he or she has $2, he or she will certainly realize...oh hey, I need $2 and I could sneak a cookie in for lunch without mom knowing.  We often see examples of the ingenuity of our children and wonder, how did they learn that? They don't need to be taught, at least not in the way we have come to understand it.  The problem is not in the facts, it's in the learning itself.  People make it through the system, learn to look to the teacher for the lessons and the assignments but find themselves in the real world where the "teacher" figure is no longer at their disposal.  Oh my, how do I learn now?

Sugata's tests showed that provided a computer and nothing else, Indian children managed to teach themselves to use the machine, the language (English) of the computer, and even nuero-biology.  Learning is not about the level of the student, but the desire to find a solution.  Without the threat of exams and tests and only the measure of "did I succeed in finding my answer?" as the measurement of learning, they will learn.  Through this scope we can see talking in class as self-organization and the growth of interpersonal skills toward a shared goal rather than chaos in need of control and the disciplinarian teacher.

With the help of instant knowledge found on our computers and smart phones, we no longer need to focus on memorization of facts.  As Sugata pointed out, knowledge in itself has become obsolete and as teachers and educators we can turn our attention instead to teaching an understanding of the process.  A thought occurred to me as he was explaining this and showing clips of village children on the street teaching themselves and each other high school level science. I believe that with the help of technology, learning anything can be treated as learning a first language.  The type of learning that happens by chance by simply moving from day to day and interacting with peers.

Recent research in SLA has shown that traditional grammar drills in language classes have little to no effect.  It is simply the desire to communicate and association of form to meaning that results in language acquisition.  Mirroring this goal-orientated (communication in the case of language) method to learning, we can develop curriculum that provide the form (shared knowledge base as found on the internet) and allow students to discover the meaning as a process toward resolution. Given the tools and a relevant task, students will teach themselves.  Our aim in the new work force is no longer on identical human knowledge bases.  It is creative minds with the ability to use any given tool at their disposal to solve problems and innovate.  With that in mind, it is even more important to give students of today the tools they will use in the future and train them to learn, understand, use and change along with the tools. Jobs are no longer static across platforms. The more we use technology in work, the faster it changes.  There is no way to expect students to learn something at 10 that will be the same when they enter the work force.  Change is the name of the game, and focus should be on teaching children to change and grow as needed.  Learning is no longer about knowledge, but about the process.  And measurement of success will be measurement of ability to use and develop the individual thought process.

To prepare for today's growing needs, one only needs the technology and a mentality to return to an age reminiscent of the education provided by Socrates in group work and communication. Ancient meets contemporary in order to bring us back to the former glory we hope to achieve.  Let's recreate this ability to work together, taking the class from the forum to the clouds.  The sky is the limit.