Thursday, November 22, 2007

Hole-in-a-Wall project

The Hole-in-a-Wall project relies on the premise that curiosity will lead to children learning. A computer company in India located next to a slum made a hole in the wall of the office, and installed a computer, accessible from the street. Within four months the street children could create folders, cut and paste, create shortcuts and use Word. The creator then tried another experiment where he went to a school and chose some Year 9 students. He asked the Physics teacher to write down 5 questions on viscosity. He then took the students and gave them the problems. They read the questions and did not understand them at all. He then gave them a computer and 2 hours to find the answers. They answered all 5 questions correctly in 2 hours.

17 comments:

Neil Sansome said...

Interesting proect and I wonder if why the kids were so amused with a computer in a wall and who came up with this experiment.Plaese Verify.

Anonymous said...

Ned Merewether
I think the Information age is the age of learning.(Thats why its called that). I think kids naturally have the want to learn, but difficulties like where they are, there access to information and other things like that. It was an interesting experiment and it proves that, as long as something is interesting, its learnable by anyone.

Phillip Scott said...

I agree. I find that in the classroom if the teacher does something out-of-the-blue it will help me remember the lesson, rather than copying notes of the board. For example, going outside to view the harbour and talking about Aboriginal people.

KiuHei Chu said...

Computers are interesting which is probably why schools are buying computers. They also are useful and much quicker than hand writing these comments and posting them to everyone. Think about it, without internet but with blogs, would we have to waste time writing notices to post onto noticeboards??? From KiuHei Chu

Declan.E said...

that is a very interesting project. like Neil i would like to know came up with it. i think it is a great way to introduce kids to the computer and make it enjoyable

Anonymous said...

I think that with the new government trying to place computers in every school, there will be changes such as those in India but on a larger scale.

Anonymous said...

I think it is a good way of getting children to use computers and an excellent way to get kids to learn because we like computers and we (sometimes) enjoy to learn.

Aram Rohani

KiuHei Chu said...

Talking about 'out-of-the-blue' Mr Paterson kind of own3d us all this lesson Aaargh!! Tell me if this HTML thingy works...

Anonymous said...

I think that the owner of the computer has given the unfortunate a chance to understand technology a bit more. I also think it may act as a motivation for further techonlogy advancements in Indian school technology.

Anonymous said...

Sorry for my original comment.=)

Anonymous said...

Shore does very well at creating interest in the topics taught. The teachers I have in year 7 have been great and used many different ways of writing, thinking, experimenting etc.
Overall I think the interesting ways of teaching and learning make school much more enjoyable.

KiuHei Chu said...

By the way, Does anyone want to know how to use these HTML italics and thingies?
FROM KIUHEI CHU!!!

Maximillian Brewer said...

That's amazing that such a simple machine (well...not realy that simple) can help so much in learning, and I think that further use of technoledgy including computers and Smart Boards can help alot.

Cameron Paterson said...

I agree that out-of-the-blue learning experiences can be powerful. I also agree that technology is becoming more and more important in education.

The Hole-in-a-Wall project is quite well known. If you google it you will finds lots of information.

Kiu Hei, I suspect that the days of using noticeboards at schools to transfer info are numbered!

Jack rollins said...

great great.. thats incredibly interesting, if i must say so myself. [chuckle] [chuckle]..
Mr Patterson and Mr Jennings greatest history teachers..
rollo

hugh said...

I've always wanted to be able to learn from any one place, just with the acess of the computer. Sites like www.wikipedia.org have enabled this to some degree, but have been composed by the community and may be unreliable.

Simply, I want to be able to learn from home. With information provided by accredited people.

Anonymous said...

excellent idea for the uneducated with no facilities although how does it apply to us considering we allready have computers
they are extremely helpfull for assighnments allthough websites can easily decieve people such as WIKIPEDIA which is edited by the general public at will
MAX