While much of this has focused around the impact of touch technologies such as iPad, iPod touch and electronic readers such as Amazon’s Kindle on the worldview of the young, relatively little has been written about the impact of internet technologies on that age group.
It is the dream of Sugata Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University to prove that computing can be taught easily to children without any formal training. The genial Mitra is a pioneered kiosk computing in the developing world through the simple act of placing a kiosk computer within a wall in a slum in Kalkaji, India and allowing children to freely use it.
The innovation here, however, is not the principle of putting computers in the developing world. Mitra’s work instantiates a new way of using computers by re-imagining computers as a shared asset in a communal space. It is possible, feasible, even desirable to have 4 children around the age of 10 sharing a computer.
When the children first encountered the computers, they were given specific tasks to help guide their experience. Soon afterwards the children were left to their own devices and allowed to use the computers freely. Mitra found that the children collaborated to discover how to use the computer, where to get information, and how to use the internet.
The idea of computers being shared runs counter to the cultural development of the use of computers in the West. Computers have evolved from being shared, to existing in a ‘computer room’ through to the personal iPad, or the intimate smartphone in the palm of your hand. We are taught to love and develop personal relationships with our computers. They are above all, ours.
With this growing shift towards personalisation and intimacy, so our interfaces have become more intimate and personal. Biometric locks on computers are also more or less commonplace. We need to design a different kind of experience for shared computing. As mobile designers, we need to design experiences where several smart phones can work together to provide a shared experience.
The success of platforms such as YouTube, and the demand for focused online education shown by the success of TED’s videos demonstrates the potential to use shared computing as a powerful platform for education. TED’s videos have been watched more than 300M times.
The video concept can be expanded or simplified as needed, with direct links from mobile devices to video platforms. People are getting better at producing video and audio, editing it, and with increased bandwidth, consuming it in higher quality. Some smartphones also already have the ability to edit the video and publish natively.
Digital democratisation, a phenomenon where access to high-end production technology becomes cheaper, and the platforms for sharing that content become more readily available, has been one of the major trends in recent years in the developed world.
We are now seeing this digital democratisation expand to the developing world. In a few years, mobile video communication will become commonplace, and hence we will be able to transform education as we can provide live, interactive and remote education.
These will all be developments to follow in the coming months and years. However, it is worth noting that while the stated vision of at least one provider of technological solutions to the developing world is to provide one laptop per child, there may be something intrinsically valuable about the idea of computing as a shared activity.
Twitter
YouTube
Vimeo
Slideshare
Linkedin