The School in the Cloud
We’ve ushered into the digital era - a time where life without the internet and smartphones seems almost fictional. Today, children aren’t bound by what they learn in school; an internet connection and a curious mind are all they need. The internet knows it all - right from how to tie a tie to the principles of quantum mechanics. What, then, is the future of education in such a world?
The School in the Cloud
April 18, 2024 12 MIN READ
“Humans don’t have to be forced to learn; they just need the tools to be able to do it” -Sugata Mitra
Enter Sugata Mitra – the man who questioned this future with his experiment called “Hole in the Wall”. To his surprise, when he set up a computer in the walls of Delhi, he observed that children in groups can learn how to operate it themselves- without a teacher or any prior knowledge! He conducted this experiment way back in 1999, setting in motion a vehicle of hope for the future of learning.
Thus began a series of experiments that make us ponder far and wide about our current pedagogy.
Going Beyond Traditional Education
When dealing with traditional education, we tend to make an assumption – that the jobs of tomorrow are the same as the jobs of today. Fun fact: having good handwriting or knowing the 17 times table by heart is no longer a flex in the modern job-seeking world.
This is best explained by Sugata Mitra in his 2013 Ted presentation, talking about the future of education:
“Could it be that at the point of time when you need to know something, you can find out in 2 minutes? Could it be that we’re heading towards (or maybe are) in a future where knowing is obsolete?”
Yes, there was a time in the age of empires when we needed to survive threats; when punishments and exams made sense. But the age of the empire is gone, and we must take a step toward making learning more accessible and creative.
For example, have you ever wondered what kind of education kids in socially and economically backward places receive? Is the infrastructure good enough? Are the teachers knowledgeable enough to arm them with the needs of tomorrow?
Such are the questions Mitra aims to solve- equipping economically disadvantaged children with basic IT skills for the future. Hole in the Wall isn’t just restricted to this- it’s a system where learning happens, where children teach themselves by experimenting, collaborating, and most importantly- thinking.
If there’s one thing that’s clear amidst all of this, it’s that we’re dealing with an outdated system; one that needs a paradigm shift to improve the future of education.
Minimally Invasive Education- The Way Forward?
On a bright sunny day in Kalkaji, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues set up a powerful PC and touchpad on the wall near their office- quite literally after making a hole in that wall. Their office wall was close to a slum, and the kids living there barely went to school. Even the ones who did go to school received poor education. No explanation was given as to why the computer was set up there, or what it does. To capture the ongoings, they simply installed a video camera on a nearby tree and waited.
It only took a few days for them to be surprised, for what they observed next was beyond their imagination.
Children, aged 6-14, began walking up to the monitor and playing around with it. Then, they called their friends and formed small groups, collectively learning and teaching each other essential functions of operating the computer- like browsing, drawing, cutting, and pasting.
The key highlight of this exercise? All of this was under an unsupervised environment- without any teacher. The children simply learned by watching and doing.
This raises an interesting question: what else are children capable of teaching themselves?
When asked how they knew certain English words despite not receiving a formal education, they replied: “You’ve given us a machine that only works in English, so we had to teach ourselves English.” The kids even made up new words like sui (needle) for the cursor and channel for the websites. Creative thinking at its best, don’t you think so?!
Amazed by the results they obtained, Sugata and his colleagues conducted a 9-month study in 4 villages in Karnataka, substantiating the hypothesis that when groups of children are left unsupervised with a computer, they will learn how to use it themselves.
They observed a promising learning curve in all three groups that were considered in the study (focus group, control group, and frequent users of the PC). But what mattered most was that learning was indeed happening at all sites- leading to a cascade of research projects for the next four years.
Now, while these children made good progress by themselves, there came a point when they lost interest and began repeating the same functions. In order to boost their morale, a nudge was needed.
And that is how ‘the granny cloud’ came into the picture.
The Granny Cloud
Do you remember the warmth of your grandmother’s soporific voice? How her simple “well done” or “wow, that’s fantastic” would cheer you up and you’d do things better? Mitra realized that they needed this ‘grandmother-like’ approach; so he asked a few “grannies” (mostly retired teachers with a few hours to spare) to help him out.
The Granny Cloud is a network of online volunteers across the world with the sole aim to motivate, empower, and subtly guide children to the right learning path.
Gouri Chindarkar, one of the first group of students to have studied in a Self Organized Learning Environment, was reported saying:
“They were more like friends than teachers, and whatever we felt we could express freely with them. They were not expected to teach, but to provoke our curiosity, get us to think, search for answers, and share what we found. This journey (SOLE) taught me to learn, to make mistakes, and rectify them and start again.”
Changing Classrooms with Self-Organized Learning Environments (SOLEs)
Now, let’s assume your granny gives you an assignment- to find the answer to a broad question using the internet.
You and three other children immediately huddle over a computer; frantically surfing websites in the quest for an answer. There’s no teacher supervising you. You discuss, talk, and teach freely- only to come up with well-researched yet creative answers with your friends.
That is what a SOLE feels like- a space that’s mildly chaotic, creative, and collaborative. An exciting glimpse of it is seen in the Durham University paper published in the Online Educational Research Journal.
“Why do we slip on wet surfaces?” (as asked by the granny)
The children were talking in their groups about friction, snow tyres, grips on football boots, different surfaces, racing cars, all in twenty minutes.
These experiments paved the way for a newer outlook- one where Google, Skype, Wikipedia, a few grannies, and big questions could make a school- a school Sugata called “School in the Cloud.”
Four years of research, more holes in the walls, and a Ted prize later, we now have 7 ‘School in the Cloud’ laboratories– 5 in India and 2 in the USA. As of 2016, more than 16,000 SOLE sessions have been conducted globally. Sugata Mitra has sparked the minds of many, even inspiring the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.
But, no innovative research comes without challenges. A major drawback of Mitra’s ideology is its scalability. Most of the initial experiments were conducted in very small groups and failed to get published in high-impact journals. Even though the results were promising, more critical evidence is needed to evaluate the long-term learning curves of students. Critics are also sceptical about how it will affect the current teacher-student dynamic, as SOLEs make the student the center of attention.
Making Learning Better with Technology
So, what is it that Sugata is trying to propose through these experiments? To put it subtly, it’s a reform– a radical change in the way we learn and ideate.
A School in the Cloud is an adventure that children embark upon as they find answers to bigger questions in life- bigger than the tangent of a triangle.
“My wish is to design the future of learning by supporting children all over the world to tap into their wonder and their ability to work together. “
For the naysayers of education technology, maybe this school is the silver lining in the cloud. If the goal of equipping rural and urban areas with relevant skills comes true, this could be a revolutionary step in the future of learning.
There’s a long way to go, but enabling this path will make sure that we let learning happen instead of making it happen.