WEBVTT

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Diego Golombek:
(Spanish) Sugata, it's an honor

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to have you here at TEDxRíodelaPlata.

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I think that many of us surely know you
from your former experiments.

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Remember "A hole in the wall," right?

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That one about a computer
suddenly appearaing in a village.

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But now I want to ask you about
what's going on at the moment with SOLE,

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about what happened with the TED Prize:
How is the implementation going?

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How is it making progress?
What is your assessment of it?

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Sugata Mitra: I think he wants to know
what happened after that film.

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So, let me tell you what happened.

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We built seven Schools in the Cloud.

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Five in India and two in England.

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What is the School in the Cloud?

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Well, let me give you a small example.

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You know, people used to travel
from one place to another

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in a horse-drawn carriage
for thousands of years,

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until the automobile was invented.

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When the automobile was invented
the horse and carriage went away

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and the coachman, the man
who used to drive the horse and carriage,

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he also went away

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and the passengers became the drivers.

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In the School in the Cloud
what we are trying to find out is:

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Is it possible in our education systems --

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has the time come
to make the passengers drive?

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So, we launched these seven schools.

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The most distant one had nothing:

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no electricity, no health care,
no schools.

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The best ones, in England, had everything.

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And then, we let the learners
drive the car.

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What happened?

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You might think that I am going to say
something romantic, but I am not.

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I got bitten by one million mosquitoes.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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And then, the children began to change.

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In England,
the students wrote me an e-mail

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saying "Why are they teaching?"

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In Korakati, the most distant
of our Schools in the Cloud,

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the children said,

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"Why does the skyped in Granny
speak such simple English?

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Doesn't she know that we understand her?"

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(Laughter)

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In another Bengal village, Chandrakona,

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I noticed a distinct Birmingham accent.

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(Laughter)

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It was faster than anything
that I had expected.

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I don't know if you are going
to believe this:

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in Korakati, the village where
the children know no English at all,

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on day number three,

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one of the English teachers
who skyped in said,

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"You know, those children are very sweet,
they said 'When are you coming back?'"

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I said, "In what language
did they ask you?"

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And she said: "In English."
Three days.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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So, I asked the children,

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"How did you learn to speak
in English so quickly?"

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And they looked at me and said,

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"You know that woman
who comes on the screen?

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She doesn't understand
anything other than English."

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(Applause)

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Now, for the bad news.

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The seven laboratories
have seven different kinds of problems.

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The biggest problem is not pedagogy,
it is not teaching and learning,

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it is technology.

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So, I struggle to keep those
remote locations running

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but I know that I will find the way,
I still have one more year to go,

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I know I will find the way
to keep them running

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and I know for sure,

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and I tell you this for the first time
in the world on a TED stage,

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the passengers are driving the car.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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So, one last little bit
that I need to tell you:

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I used to get called to conferences,

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I still do,

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but for the last one year
I have been called

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by the Education Department
of governments of different countries.

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They are listening.

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And I have only one suggestion to them;

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something that I want
some government to try,

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perhaps the government here, in Argentina.

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It is very simple:

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I want someone to allow the use
of the Internet during examinations.

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(Applause)

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Thanks.

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I know there are students here,
and I know that the examination

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is the only day in their life when
they don't have access to the Internet.

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So I hope I will be able to change that.

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And, if the Internet enters
the examination,

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the entire system will have changed.

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It would then be an idea
that was worth spreading.

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DG: (Spanish) Sugata, a question that
you are surely being asked all the time.

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With this about self organized learning,

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What happens with the teachers,
what's left for the teachers?

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SM: You know, there is a misconception
that teachers will not have a role.

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That's not true, that's not true at all.

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In a SOLE, children find
the answers to questions.

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But who makes the question?
Who listens to their answers?

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Who says, most importantly,
"That was well done"?

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That is what the teacher has to do.

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(Applause)

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DG: (Spanish) 
Regarding what Sugata mentioned

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about this being implemented here,

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there's a plan for at least
one school in Barracas

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that will begin soon
with this SOLE system

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of self organized learning
in the School in the Cloud.

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And a last question, Sugata.

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He arrived yesterday, he's being taken
from one place to another.

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So it's an honor that he would spend
some little time with us here.

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The last question is:

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One of your main concerns
is the school of the future.

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Let's think a middle-term future,
in 50 years:

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How do you imagine...
how do you wish school to be?

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SM: You know... It's hard for me to say
what the school will look like.

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But something much deeper will happen
and it won't take 50 years to happen.

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Our definition of the word 'to know'.

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What does it mean when you say
"I know something"?

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It could be something that you learned
in school when you were seven years old

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or it could be something
that Google told you one minute ago.

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Knowing doesn't mean anything.

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Should we feel sorry?
No, I don't think so.

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Ideas, like objects, become obsolete.

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When I started, I thought...

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I was saying "schools will be obsolete".

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I am now forced to say
that knowing will be obsolete.

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What we will take is this:

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the collective consciousness
of seven billion people.

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(Applause)