Afterthoughts

Writers Sugata Mitra and Payal Arora were invited to provide some afterthoughts having read each other's papers. As Arora observes, the Hole-in-the-Wall approach has shown that the absence of a teacher can sometimes encourage children to explore more bravely than they would in their presence. However, as she again observes, institutional indifference may result in abdication of responsibility and lack of sustainability. It sells its products to schools and hence locates its kiosks on school playgrounds. She also wonders whether placing of computers i

An investigation into the impact of Self Organised Learning Environment (SOLE) on student engagement in Higher Education

Student engagement has become a cause for concern within higher education, and research has begun to identify specific areas within educational practices that are effective surrounding student engagement (Kahn, 2014). Earlier work conducted by Sugata Mitra referred to as ‘the hole in the wall’ experiments, have shown that groups of children can learn without the assistance of adult intervention. The aim of this paper was to investigate student engagement levels utilising the Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE) with adults, in a first year university seminar. The experiment was conducted utilising the SOLEs procedure applicable to a higher education setting. Results, which are discussed in the paper, show that there was a non-significant increase (+11.6%) in student engagement levels utilising SOLEs, compared to traditional seminars students previously participated within

CAN KIDS LEARN BY THEMSELVES USING TECHNOLOGY AND WHAT DO THEY LEARN?

This study presents the method and results of an experiment conducted to investigate whether kids (5-8 years) can use technology to learn in such unsupervised learning conditions. This study also assesses the skills and understanding that children develop through unsupervised technology exposure. The study, carried over 6 months, focused on two primary schools (School ‘A’ and School ‘B’) both found in Mauritius. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were adopted to collect data for this investigation. The qualitative data focused on interviews with kids, examination of the students’ work on PCs, observation in their ability to explore an interface, use a mouse, keyboard and the Internet. The quantitative data provide information which is easy to analyze statistically and fairly reliable. Descriptive statistics and charts have been used to analyze the quantitative data. It has been found that kids who had access to computers and Internet-based resources both at school and at home can self – educate themselves, but only to some extent because there will come such a moment when they will need a facilitator for guidanc

Desire Lines: Open Educational Collections, Memory and the Social Machine

This paper delineates the initial ideas around the development of the Co-Curate North East project. The idea of computerised machines which have a social use and impact was central to the development of the project. The project was designed with and for schools and communities as a digital platform which would collect and aggregate ‘memory’ resources and collections around local area studies and social identity. It was a co-curation process supported by museums and curators which was about the ‘meshwork’ between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ archives and collections and the ways in which materials generated from within the schools and community groups could themselves be re-narrated and exhibited online as part of self-organised learning experiences. This paper looks at initial ideas of social machines and the ways in machines can be used in identity and memory studies. It examines ideas of navigation and visualisation of data and concludes with some initial findings from the early stages of the project about the potential for machines and educational work

RECONSIDERING THE ROLE OF STANDARD CURRICULA IN (IS / IT) EDUCATION DO STANDARD CURRICULA STILL FIT IN CURRENT SOCIETY?

Given the fact that the majority of standard curricula are based on transferring existing knowledge, we raise the question whether in contemporary society they still address the challenges we are facing. We believe that dynamics and accompanying disruptions of our daily work require a way broader approach to curriculum development, then it has been done for the last centuries. Our research shows the need for more flexible programs, in which end-terms are defined in a different way. Standard curricula are only partially able to cover the challenges in contemporary society, and accreditation is no longer the optimal way for quality assurance in education. It became increasingly clear that the new programs are difficult to implement. Rules and regulations, administrative tasks, like the current practice of accreditation, also form a huge hurdle to prepare our future forerunners in society for the challenges, they will have to deal with, even in the near future. Preface and positioning: This paper is written as a discussion paper. Developments in current society allow us to challenge traditional approaches to high-level education

Self-Regulation, Mediators, and E-Learning: A Field Experiment in Rural Belize

Can lessons from IS research be applied on a small scale in rural environments to help a country develop? Students in rural schools in Belize often lack access to well-trained subject experts, score lower on national exams, and enroll in secondary schools at a lower rate than urban students. Utilizing mobile Internet technologies, students living without electricity can now access educational resources similar to urban students. How best to utilize these resources to improve students’ learning outcomes remains to be solved. This article first describes and compares a theory originating in the developed world (self-regulated learning) with one originating in the developing world (minimally invasive education). Second, it presents a framework combining constructs from both theories. Finally, it focuses on learning outcomes as measured by students’ cognitive ability, self-efficacy and motivation and compares a self-organized learning environment with one enhanced by self-regulated strategies, through a quasi-experimental design