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Web-Surfing Indian Slum Kids Ask: "What's a Computer"

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the teach-a-man-to-fish dept.

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.

8 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. I can see it now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm picturing a ghetto kid, shoeless, standing in front of this magical screen embedded in a dingy concrete wall, and saying:
    Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these...

  2. Sigh. by flacco · · Score: 5, Funny
    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.

    Yet our organization still has full-grown, western-educated employees who hold the fucking mouse upside-down.

    --
    pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
    1. Re:Sigh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Dude, it's called a trackball.

  3. Can you imagine? by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a Bhagavad-Gita cluster of these!

  4. Funny... by KingJawa · · Score: 5, Funny

    We're amazed that a bunch of kids in India can use the web, but have no trouble believing that a survivor of war-torn Afghanistan can (a) get a Commodore on the 'net and (b) emails Jon Katz when he does.

  5. messed up title by cosyne · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did anyone else read the title on this and think they'd accidentally gone to The Onion instead of slashdot?

  6. Re:My favourite part of this experiment by drDugan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wish there was an easy way to send that message to companies every time I delete my cookies.

  7. Re:This is incredible by shogun · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm really seriously scared about what would happen if suddenly the whole wide world had access to these kids.

    I imagine they would just suddenly have a lot of people trying to sell them printer toner, university diplomas or penis enlargers.