"Let Learning Happen"

A colleague passed this video on to me a couple of weeks ago and I was blown away by the contents.

It really speaks to how children are 'wired' today and how they learn. For the first 10 minutes of the video I was feeling a littler nervous in regards to how he was presenting the role of teachers today. However, as the video went on the role of the teacher in the digital and technological age became clearer and clearer.

The educational researcher is Prof. Sugata Mitra and he gave access to high speed Internet to children in various parts of India where there was no computer access. For more on the experiment check out:

Wikipedia - Prof. Sugata Mitra

Here are the Self Organising Systems for Schools he identified:

1. Groups of 4-6
2. One computer per group
3. Unrestricted broadband
4. Interesting questions
5. eMediation if required
6. Discussion allowed
7. Changing groups allowed
8. Watching other groups allowed
9. Leave them alone!

Hope people find this as interesting as I did.

The Shift to Digital Classrooms

With every passing day it is becoming more and more obvious that the traditional classroom is changing just as fast as everything outside of it. The roles of the student and the teacher are going to change ver quickly over the next short while.

Some of the major changes that I see happening that are a direct result of technology and digital learning are the following:

1. Large group instruction is going the way of the dodo bird. Interactive learning, mobile devices, differentiated learning are all going to drive student learning in our classrooms.
2. As educators we are going to have to collect more data on our students. Having this information will allow us to program for their individual learning needs.
3. Quiet seat work will take a backseat to collaborative, team based learning with the teacher acting as the facilitator and moderator.
4. Students will bring in their learning resources from outside the school and create meaningful learning opportunities for themselves with the guidance of their teachers.