A Weekly Taste of What`s Cool in Educational Technology Every

A Weekly Taste of What’s Cool
in Educational Technology
Every Tuesday
Kahla Middle School
Week of Tuesday, February 14
The Valentine’s Day Edition
In This Week’s Edition:
 Microsoft PowerPoint Tip of the Week: Be A PowerPoint Superstar
 Top Tip Of The Week: Free Audio and Video
 Cool Websites of the Week: Valentine’s History and Projects
 30 Minute Afterschool Taste of Technology Training: Museum Box
 Special Feature: Valentine’s Day Internet Scavenger Hunt
 Spotlight Article: Hole in the Wall Project
This week’s PowerPoint Tip is “So You Want To Be A
PowerPoint Superstar”
http://learningppt.com/so-you-want-to-be-a-powerpoint-superstar/
Very impressive blog listing dozens and dozens simple to advanced
PowerPoint tricks to make your presentations really Pop!
Free audio and video
Tired of the same old music or videos on your gadget? Here's a site
with hundreds of free alternatives for you!
LearnOutLoud.com has scoured the Internet to bring you over 5000
free audio and video titles. This directory features free audio books,
lectures, speeches, sermons, interviews, and many other great free audio and video resources. Most
audio titles can be downloaded in digital formats such as MP3 and most video titles are available to
stream online. Enjoy! www.learnoutloud.com
Cool Websites of the Week
History of Valentine’s Day from the History Channel.
http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day
http://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day-facts
Disney Family Fun Valentine’s Day Printables, Games, and Activities
http://familyfun.go.com/valentines-day/valentines-day-printables/
Disney Family Fun Valentine’s Day Snacks, Recipes, and Crafts
http://familyfun.go.com/valentines-day/
http://www.history.com/topics/saint-valentines-day-massacre
3:30-4:00
Taste of Technology Training
Student Technology Spotlight
Valentine's Day Internet Scavenger Hunt
Visit the following Valentine's Day websites to learn more about the holiday and to have some holiday fun.
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History of St. Valentine's Day--http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/valentine/history.html
o On what date is the Feast of Lupercalia celebrated?
o What happened during the feast of Lupercalia when the men drew the women's names?
o Why were women "februa lashed"?
o Who did Ancient Greeks believe was the force of love?
I Love You--http://www.travlang.com/languages/iloveyou.html
o How do you say "I love you" in Swahili?
o How do you say "I love you" in Italy?
o How do you say "I love you" in Sweden?
Flower Websites-- http://www.todays-weddings.com/planning/flowers/flower_meanings.html and
http://www.tokenz.com/meaning-of-flowers.html
o What does a tulip represent?
o When it is appropropriate to send a yellow rose?
o What does it mean when you send a red and white rose together?
o What type of flower should be sent to your first love?
o What does basil mean?
Visit Amore on the Net--http://www.holidays.net/amore/val.html
o When was the oldest "valentine" in existence created, and where is it at now?
o What is an acrostic valentine?
o What kind of valentine is created by pricking tiny holes in a paper with a pin or needle?
o What company first began manufacturing valentines in the early 1900s?
Visit Happy Valentine's Day--http://www.rom101.com/storyview.jsp?storyid=25 or
http://www.qgazette.com/News/2001/0214/Feature_Stories.html
o Who sent the earliest known valentine and to whom was it sent?
o Who was the first American publisher of valentines?
o Why did Emperor Claudius NOT want his soldiers to marry?
o What is the only holiday where Americans exchange more cards than on Valentine's Day?
Visit the Cupid Website at-- http://www.holidays.net/amore/cupid.html
o What was Cupid known as in Ancient Greece?
o Who was Cupid's mother?
o What was Psyche supposed to put in the little box to take to the underworld?
o What happened when Psyche opened the box?
Visit Ah Awesome Valentines at--http://www.marlo.com/val.htm
o Go through the steps to create a cybervalentine. Print out a copy of a valentine for your teacher
or a friend.
If that link is slow, try this one-- http://rats2u.com/calendar_tuvwxyz/calendar_valentine.htm
Visit Hershey's at-- http://www.hersheys.com/discover/chocolate.asp
o Go through the pictures and text tour and answer each question.
o From what type of trees do cocoa beans come?
o How long are cocoa beans left in a pile to darken and age?
o What are the four main ingredients of Hershey chocolate?
o When did Milton Hershey develop the recipe for Hershey chocolate?
o How long does it take to smooth out the chocolate paste when making the chocolate?
o How many "kisses" are made each day?
o How many pounds of chocolate does Hershey produce in a year?
Cool Internet Pictures
The Hole in the Wall Project
and the Power of Self-Organized Learning
By Sugata Mitra
2/3/12
In early 1999, some colleagues and I sunk a computer into the opening of a wall near our office in Kalkaji, New
Delhi. The area was located in an expansive slum, with desperately poor people struggling to survive. The
screen was visible from the street, and the PC was available to anyone who passed by. The computer had
online access and a number of programs that could be used, but no instructions were given for its use.
What happened next astonished us. Children came running out of the nearest slum and glued themselves to
the computer. They couldn’t get enough. They began to click and explore. They began to learn how to use this
strange thing. A few hours later, a visibly surprised Vivek said the children were actually surfing the Web.
We left the PC where it was, available to everyone on the street, and within six months the children of the
neighborhood had learned all the mouse operations, could open and close programs, and were going online to
download games, music and videos. We asked them how they had learned all of these sophisticated
maneuvers, and each time they told us they had taught themselves.
Interestingly, they described the computer in their own terms, often coining words to indicate what they saw on
the screen. For instance, the children’s word for the hourglass symbol that appears when a program is
“thinking” was “damru,” the name of a small wooden drum shaped like an hourglass that is a symbol of the
Hindu god Shiva. The mouse cursor was called “sui,” a Hindi word for needle, or “teer,” which means arrow.
We repeated the experiment in two other locations: in the city of Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh (Digvijay Singh, a
prominent politician, was interested in our research), and in a village called Madantusi in Uttar Pradesh. Both
of these experiments showed the same result as the Kalkaji experiment: The children seemed to learn to use
the computer without any assistance. Language did not matter, and neither did education.
Over the next decade we did extensive research in self-directed learning, in many places and through many
cultures. Each time, the children were able to develop deep learning by teaching themselves. I decided to call
the method of instruction we had developed Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The rest of the world
continues to call it the Hole in the Wall.
Certain common observations from our experiments emerged, suggesting the following learning process
occurs when children self-instruct in computer usage:
1. Discoveries tend to happen in one of two ways: When one child in a group already knows something
about computers, he or she shows off those skills to the others. Or, while the others watch, one child
explores randomly in the GUI (Graphical User Interface) environment until an accidental discovery is
made. For example, the child may discover that the cursor changes to a hand shape at certain places
on the screen.
2. Several children repeat the discovery for themselves by asking the first child to let them try it.
3. While in Step 2, one or more children make more accidental or incidental discoveries.
4. All the children repeat all the discoveries made and, in the process, make more discoveries. They
soon start to create a vocabulary to describe their experiences.
5. The vocabulary encourages them to perceive generalizations, such as, “When you click on a handshaped cursor, it changes to the hourglass shape for a while and a new page comes up.”
6. They memorize entire procedures for doing something, such as how to open a painting program and
retrieve a saved picture. Whenever a child finds a shorter procedure, he or she teaches it to the others.
They discuss, hold small conferences, make their own timetables and research plans. It is important
not to underestimate them.
7. The group divides itself into the “knows” and the “know-nots,” much as they might divide
themselves into “haves” and “have-nots” with regard to their possessions. However, a child that
knows will share that knowledge in return for friendship and reciprocity of information, unlike with the
ownership of physical things, where they can use force to get what they do not have. When you “take”
information, the donor doesn’t “lose” it!
8. A stage is reached when no further discoveries are being made and the children occupy themselves with
practicing what they have already learned. At this point, intervention is required to plant a new seed for
discovery, such as, “Did you know that computers could play music? Here, let me play a song for you.” In the
Hole in the Wall computers, such minimal intervention happens accidentally from passing adults or just by
accidental discoveries. Usually, a spiral of discoveries follows and another self-instructional cycle begins.
When working in groups, children do not need to be “taught” how to use computers. They can teach
themselves. Their ability to do so seems to be independent of educational background, literacy level, social or
economic status, ethnicity and place of origin, gender, geographic location (i.e., city, town or village, or
intelligence).
Using the Hole in the Wall setup with a single PC, children can learn to do most or all of the following tasks in
approximately three months:
1. basic computer navigation functions, such as click, drag, open, close, resize, minimize and menu selection
2. drawing and painting pictures on the computer
3. loading and saving files
4. downloading and playing games
5. running educational software and other programs
6. playing music and videos, and viewing photos and pictures
7. surfing the Internet, if a broadband connection is available
8. setting up email accounts
9. sending and receiving email
10. using social networking programs, such as chat rooms (AIM, Google Chat, etc.), Skype and Facebook
11. simple troubleshooting, such as fixing speakers that aren’t playing sound
12. downloading and playing streaming media
In addition, local teachers and field observers noted that the children demonstrated improvements in
enrollment, attendance and performance on school examinations, particularly in subjects that deal with
computing skills; English vocabulary and usage; concentration, attention span and problem-solving skills; and
working cooperatively and self-regulation.
I believe that MIE (Minimally Invasive Education) should be an important part of every school’s curricula.
Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle
University, England, and a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Mitra works in the areas of
cognitive science, information science and educational technology, and he has a keen interest in engineering and software
development. This is an excerpt from his new e-book, Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning.