Education innovator Sugata Mitra won a whopping $1 million TED Prize today for his "Hole in the Wall Experiment" to improve the future of learning by using technology to empower students to teach themselves.
The Hole in the Wall projects helps poor children in the slums of Hyderabad, India teach themselves English. By giving students access to tools like computers, Mitra showed that uneducated, non-English speaking children could work in small groups and with the help of computers, teach themselves how to speak and read.
Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University and visiting professor at M.I.T., is the eighth winner of the TED Prize. The prize is awarded to one social entrepreneur to fund his or her big idea.
The Hole in the Wall projects helps poor children in the slums of Hyderabad, India teach themselves English. By giving students access to tools like computers, Mitra showed that uneducated, non-English speaking children could work in small groups and with the help of computers, teach themselves how to speak and read.
Mitra, Professor of Educational Technology at Newcastle University and visiting professor at M.I.T., is the eighth winner of the TED Prize. The prize is awarded to one social entrepreneur to fund his or her big idea.