A School In The Cloud

 In his Ted Talk "A School in the Cloud" Sugata Mitra speaks about the accessibility of education through the use of the internet. Mitra traveled around the world to some of the poorest areas, giving students access to technology and then watching them flourish as learners. He did this through an experiment called "A Hole in the Wall" where he quite literally gave them access to this technology through a hole in the wall. He also gave them "grannies" using a method he penned called S.O.L.E (self organized learning environment) in order for them to have access to an educator. These grannies were retired school teachers.

Throughout Mitra's Ted Talk, I found myself reflecting upon the period of virtual learning during this pandemic, and even the world of teaching beyond. During the start of the pandemic, we were thrown into the virtual world with no training. We studied, we adapted. Many lessons were trial and error; as educators we saw what worked and what didn't. We set up virtual classrooms for students to stay on top of their work, we held Zoom or Google calls, and we did all this while sometimes still wearing our pajama pants 😂. Students also had to adapt. They had to learn to socialize while not being in a social setting. 

The main difference I see between the virtual classes of the pandemic and the S.O.L.E classes is that students were not physically together in our virtual classrooms. Using S.O.L.E, students are together in a space without a teacher. The teacher is there virtually to ask a question but the learning is really student centered. The have that space to socialize and really learn from one another. So this made me think about why in our virtual classrooms students seemed to struggle. It is simple, students hit a point they turned their cameras off and we were told we couldn't force them to keep them on. What would've happened with more face to face interaction.

I have seen how smoothly a virtual class can go in my own experience as a student through Rhode Island College. This smoothness is dependent on the students and their participation. I think we are taking a right step by keeping out Google Classrooms updated for students who are out, but I do think that if we ever go virtual again, we MUST have a way to keep kids interacting.