Watching a Great Presenter from Afar
Last night I had the opportunity to watch keynote speaker George Siemens who was presenting at the TLT Summit conference in Saskatoon. (Did I mention I was wearing pajamas and was kms away in the comfort of my own home?) Our professor, Alec Couros, was streaming live for us from the conference. This was something I had never experienced before. The live chat was a neat way to ask questions and converse with others who were watching from all over the continent and viewing his slide show online was helpful to follow along with his presentation.
Upon mentioning the “hole in the wall” experiment done by Sugata Mitra I was completely blown away. George explained that a computer was placed a wall in a small village of India complete with a keyboard and mouse. The children in the village began to explore the new technology and within twenty minutes they were surfing the web! In three months they had taught themselves to speak English! What an amazing example of wayfinding! The children were able to take control of their learning and make sense of things on their own.
May 18th, 2008 at 1:52 am
Nice post, Rachael.
I really like how you’ve described what you found exciting and meaningful in the presentation.
It would be interesting if in your next post you expanded a bit by explaining how you might apply what you’ve learned in the classroom. Best of luck finishing up your studies, seems like you’ll be a great teacher
May 20th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
I thought the presentation was great as well. I 2 loved the mentioning of the “hole in the wall” project. It blew my mind how this simple computer that they had no knowledge what so ever about, transformed them into these capable beings. It is exactly how you worded it, An amazing example of way finding!