Fifteen years ago, Sugata Mitra, a scientist from Calcutta, conceived of an interesting experiment. He went to a slum in Delhi, installed a computer into a public wall in the manner of a cash machine, then he waited to see what would happen.
As he had expected, the local children crowded round and began to experiment — but what he had not expected was how very quickly the kids mastered the basics of computing and began to search the internet for new areas of study.
Professor Mitra was astonished by how fast the kids learnt, especially given that they hardly spoke English. But as he observed the group, he realised one reason for their success: they were co-operating; reading in groups; solving problems together.
Mitra called his ‘hole in the wall’ computers self-organised learning environments (Soles) and went on to set up many others around the world.
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