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Web-Surfing Indian Slum Kids Ask: "What's a Computer"
chaoticset writes "An experiment in minimally directed self-learning has been going fairly well, from the article: To test his ideas, Sugata Mitra launched something 13 months ago he calls "the hole in the wall experiment." He took a PC connected to a high-speed data connection and imbedded it in a concrete wall next to NIIT's headquarters in the south end of New Delhi. The wall separates the company's grounds from a garbage-strewn empty lot used by the poor as a public bathroom. Mitra simply left the computer on, connected to the Internet, and allowed any passerby to play with it...he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net." Update: 04/17 22:23 GMT by M : Mitra has a website about his experiments.
Well, how do you say slashdotted in Christian? or Jew?
I hear that Junis has offered some Commodore 64's to help out.
-Sean
This is great! Now with all the 6-12 year olds getting free access to the net they can learn about NYC taxi cab rules and apply for their license before they even emmigrate to America! This is wonderful!!
I'm not quite sure where to start, or how to respond to this comment. So I'll just say that you're a moron. I think that covers pretty much everything.
The image of a huge wall that separates a handful of elite technologists from people who live in such abject poverty and squalor that they use this vacant lot as an open-air toilet is incredibly disturbing.
From a typical techno-geek perspective, yes this is an interesting experiment. But take a step back. Psychosocial experiments, especially those involving children, have strict ethical protocols that must be followed -- at least in North America and Europe they do. Was this a relatively benign experiment? It sounds like it was (the site is down so I can't say one way or the other) but that is not the issue. One of the key principles in experimentation is informed participation, and minors cannot give consent to participate. The purpose is to prevent exploitation.
Food, shelter and decent living conditions come far higher on my list of priorities than learning how to surf the Web. I wonder if the experimenter thought about what the potential health consequences might be for children spending more time hanging around such unsanitary conditions as a result of his kiosk.
Technology does not exist for technology's sake. At it's best, technology exists to improve people's lives.
Perhaps NIIT should see what it can do to improve lives and alleviate the misery in the slums that surround its campus instead of sticking Web terminals into walls to see how the local troglodyte children react to it while standing ankle-deep in human waste.