The Journey of Learning
I almost felt carried away in a dream by listening to Sugata Mitra's Ted Talk, Build a School in the Cloud. To create a space where children go on intellectual adventures (driven by questions asked by mediators), collaborating with each other to find, and present answers sounds wonderful. I do believe it's the future. Listening to him explain the evolving of learning through history, explaining why and how learning took place in the past and present, the world is now ready for the next step in the field of "learning".
His experiments with his design of the Future of Learning took place all over the world. The most amazing one was the whole in the wall computer in the slums of India. Children collaborated, communicated together and made it work to a certain extend. The experiment still demonstrates that guidance, facilitators, teachers, etc are of the essence to guide the learning process. The part where the teacher comes in with a big question reminded me of the article we read by Wesch,“Crisis of Significance” in where Wesch is searching for the right question to ask his students in order to connect with his students and make his students collaborate with each other to come to an answer. This research parallels with the design of the future of learning concept by Sugata Mitra.
I believe that students will learn more when there is no pressure as in exams, due dates, passing grades etc. Where they have the room for creativity, collaboration, connection it will in every way enhance the learning. I still believe that students need guidance and support to help them reach for the stars that lay just a little higher.
Saskia, I love your comments on how you think students learn best. I absolutely agree with the fact that they learn best when there is less pressure and more room for creativity and mistakes! Kids need to explore in hands on experiences to learn, and I feel like we have gone further and further from this idea.
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