"Hole in the Wall"

To begin with, "Hole in the Wall" is an experiment done by Sugata Mitra which centres on the acquisition of computing literacy on shared public computer where young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own.

"If given appropriate access and connectivity, groups of children can learn to operate and use computers with none or minimal intervention from adults".

That statement is pivotally the premise of this research which also goes to show that computers can play an effective role in ensuring equal learning opportunity for the less advantaged children.

In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.

In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.