Curiosity driven collaboration = Learning

Meet Dr. Sugata Mitra, a Professor of Educational Technology at a university in England and winner of the TED Prize 2013. He started an experiment about fifteen years ago called “Hole in the Wall” in which he found out that children can teach themselves and each other, if they are motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

The first experiment consisted of cutting a hole in the wall of an urban slum and embed an internet-connected computer screen and a touchpad. The computer was left there with a hidden camera and a remote desktop access to track its activity. After a few hours, children wondered about the object in the wall and gathered around it to learn how to use it. Dr. Mitra found out that kids as young as eight years old learned to browse the internet and taught younger kids to do so. This was especially interesting for him since the computer was set up in English, and these kids didn’t show any knowledge in the language.

Dr. Mitra experimented further and discovered that ten year old children could self-organized and teach themselves about DNA replication in as little as two months using material in a foreign language! He also found out he could boost the learning curiosity through adult encouragement and admiration or what he calls the “grandmother method”. This consisted in having adults around them admiring what the kids were learning versus simply accepting it. He continued to refine his method by experimenting in schools around the world and named the method Self Organized Learning Environment (S.O.L.E.). This technique can be used at schools or at home and perhaps at work. The concept is simple, one computer per four kids, paper, pencils and a question to answer.

I stumbled upon Dr. Sugata’s work about 5 years ago when I played the technical lead role on a challenging project. It involved a relocation, a different culture and language, and new business/fiscal acumen. I realized I needed to learn fast but I also realized it was way too much to tackle. I hopelessly googled how to learn fast from content in a foreign language, and a link to Dr. Mitra’s work showed up in the results! I got fascinated as I read through it. While reading his work, I realized I couldn’t do this alone. Just as the kids gathered in front of a computer to do research on a question, I needed to surround with others. I opted to leave the books behind, I grabbed a paper notebook  and engaged in collaborative research. I also discovered other three key attributes the kids were enacting: curiosity, connection and collaboration. I will address each of them in later blog posts, PLEASE STAY TUNED!

Monsters, the light bulb and customer service

     Last night, my three-year-old daughter dashed quietly into my bedroom and whispered “Dad!” as she lit the lamp on the night stand. While I cracked my eyes open, she slipped into the bed sheets murmuring about a monster. I chuckled as she snuggled close, and, as I stared at my lamp’s light bulb, my mind began to wander…. 

     Now awake and knowing I would soon have to carry her back to her room, I decided to kill some time on my phone googling about the invention of the light bulb. I found out a man called Humphry Davy invented it in the 1700s, but his invention caused more burns than it prevented. Seventy five years later Thomas Edison and other scientists continued Humphry’s research. They all obtained different successful results. Edison received the credit for inventing the light bulb because his version of the light bulb was technologically superior. It also included an entire integrated system that was scalable, adaptable, maintainable and viable for mass production. 

    I realized that all that is baloney, because all I want is to flick a switch and get light. If the light doesn't turn on, I know it’s time to change a light bulb. It then dawned on me that this is an example of excellent customer service. Maybe Edison had that in mind, maybe he didn't, or maybe that’s why he came up with the integrated system. Customer Service is not just attending every single call in a satisfactory and speedy fashion. Customer Service is not only to reduce the number of calls or have more people attending those calls. Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of the customer’s satisfaction. Customer service is the feeling that a product or service has met the customer’s expectation. Although there is a lot going on beneath the light bulb, the user interface is very simple: a switch. Consider generators, wires, relays, and transformers that, when well-coordinated, make light appear in a room at the flick of a switch. Technology users expect their computers, systems and applications to be available and functional to perform their daily tasks, it’s that simple. They don’t care what’s beneath their computer screens or even deeper than that. We know there are programs, java, servers, operative systems, routers, networks, ISP’s, and you know other things that I'm forgetting. 

    We should seek simplicity inside and outside of the technologies we manage and support. We should drive to deliver systems and applications that are simple for our customers to use. Behind the scenes, we should install solutions that are scalable, adaptable, maintainable and trainable, just like the light bulb example!