Children and the Internet: experiments with minimally invasive education in India

Abstract

Urban children all over the world seem to acquire computing skills without adult intervention. Indeed this form of self-instruction has produced hackerschildren who can penetrate high tech security systems. Is this kind of learning dependent only on the availability of technology? We provided slum children in New Delhi with Internet access in their settlement. The paper describes the results obtained in the first month of unsupervised and unguided access. It is observed that children seem to understand and use the technology fluently. Language and formal education do not seem to make any significant difference.

Acquisition of computer literacy skills through self-organizing systems of learning among children in Bhutan and India

“…Research studies (Mitra 2000(Mitra , 2003Mitra and Rana 2001;Mitra et al 2005) have found that children aged 8-14 years can learn basic computing skills on their own, irrespective of their social, cultural, religious, and intellectual background or their geographical location. These research results indicate a new learning mechanism in connected environments.…”

“…The pedagogy is based on minimally invasive education (MIE) (Mitra 2003;Mitra and Rana 2001), which uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation to induce learning in groups of children, without, or with minimal intervention from a teacher (Mitra et al 2005).…”

“…According to Mitra and Rana (2001), ''acquisition of basic computing skills by any set of learners can be achieved through incidental learning provided the learners are given access to a suitable computing facility, with entertaining and motivating content, and some minimal (human) guidance''. They call this ''minimally invasive education'' (MIE).…”

Information handling and adaptive expertise

“…In relation to this, Mitra and Rana's (2001) research demonstrates that the basic functionality of most programs, such as web browsers, tend to be intuitive for most children to pick up. It is arguable therefore that teachers should be concentrating their teaching on areas such as bias and evaluation of information which are not necessarily intuitive for children and which present them with learning activities which are more likely to develop their cognitive abilities in these areas.…”

“…This is not a simple set of skills, the learning of which can easily be assessed; they are skills children may take some time to develop. As such the over-reliance on assessment may result in teachers focussing on elements which can more easily assessed, which are likely to be those more mechanical and lowerorder skills, such as the basic operation of programs, which, from the evidence of Mitra and Rana (2001) children appear to have few problems in acquiring.…”