Communications of the ACM
Tedglobal: Cloud Schools Offer New Education
Schoolchildren in Hyderabad, India, use Skype to contact an online moderator in the United Kingdom.
Credit: Newcastle University
Newcastle University professor Sugata Mitra in February won a $1 million award to set up a series of cloud-based schools, and described his vision of the first "school in the cloud" at the recent Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) Global conference. "A school in the cloud is basically a school without physical teachers," Mitra says. He plans to establish five cloud schools, with three in India and two in the United Kingdom. The glass classrooms will contain many computers and one large screen, through which moderators will Skype in.
Mitra's initiative is based on the hole-in-the-wall computers that he set up in India's slums in 1999. The computers were left for children to explore without any prior instruction, and Mitra says he was amazed at the skills they developed on their own.
Also at TEDGlobal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Anant Agarwal discussed how his edX online platform could help bring top-tier university education to students in developing countries. "Education has not changed in 500 years — we still herd children like cats into classrooms at 9 a.m.," says Agarwal, who argues a different approach is needed in the developing world.
From BBC News
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