A short presentation delivered at a brown bag event at NCFE HQ in Newcastle upon Tyne - June 2016

1. NISR Advisory Board
Self organised learning
environments and the sacrifice of
education to qualification.
James Stanfield (james.Stanfield@ncl.ac.uk)

2. BACKGROUND
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HOW DID IT COME ABOUT?
Sugata Mitra starts the “Hole in
the Wall” experiment in 1999
1999 2007 2013 2015
Sugata Mitra presented three
TED talks (07-13), culminating
to winning the $1M TED Prize
Around the world, educators
are also bringing the SOLE
concept to the classroom
The concept: Self-Organizing Learning Environments (SOLEs)

3. GLOBAL MOVEMENT
3
+ Others
Gocharan
(Lab 0)
West Bengal
(Lab 1)
SOLE New Delhi
(Lab 3)
SOLE Maharashtra
(Lab 4)
West Bengal
(Lab 2)
SOLE UK
(Labs 5 & 6)
Stand-alone Labs SOLE Global Projects
SOLE Central is a university research centre,
which is collecting and analysing research
across the School in the Cloud ecosystem
Research interests
Impact of SOLE on:
• Individual learners
• Teachers
• Schools & communities
Research projects:
• Using SOLEs to help children learn coding
• Using SOLEs to learn English as a foreign language
• Using SOLE to improve reading comprehension
• Using SOLE to promoting young people's engagement
• Using SOLE to develop 21st century skills
Granny Cloud
THE SCHOOL IN THE CLOUD IS THE UMBRELLA BRAND FOR A GLOBAL RESEARCH PROJECT WHICH
INCLUDES: TED PRIZE FUNDED LABS, INDEPENDENTLY-FUNDED SOLE PROJECTS AND THE GRANNY
CLOUD

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Why?
Developing countries – lack of schools,
teachers & resources & growth of the internet.
Developed countries – lack of engagement,
disconnect between schools and outside world,
schools failing to develop key skills, questions
about the qualification system.

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Learning at the edge of chaos
The way in which children behave during SOLE sessions around the world are
reminiscent of self-organising systems:
• Governed by very simple rules – continuously evolving
• Chaotic and unpredictable
• Self correcting
• Small changes have large impact
• Whole is greater than the sum of the parts
The evaluation problem
• In a complex and chaotic world, similar conditions could produce very different
outcomes.
• Therefore, if something works once, there would be no guarantee that it will
work the same again a second time.
• Regularity and conformity therefore break down to irregularity and diversity and
effects are no longer the straightforward and continuous functions of causes.
• Furthermore, universal theories now provide inadequate accounts of local
developments and it is these emerging local rules and behaviours that
undermine our ability to generalise about “what works.”

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From the Hole in the Wall to the School in the Cloud
• Children in unsupervised and self-organised groups can learn to
use the Internet for their own purpose (1999-2005).
• They learn to search and find answers to questions they have.
• Such ‘hole in the wall’ environments can be created inside
schools. They are called ‘Self Organised Learning Environments’
(SOLEs, 2006-2010).
• In SOLEs, children can learn almost anything by themselves.
Their reading comprehension, searching skills and self-
confidence seem to improve quickly. Search engines are at the
heart of this process.
• This process is helped by the presence of a friendly, but not
necessarily knowledgeable, mediator.

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The future of assessment
• Current assessment systems look for identical responses
from learners.
• Open-ended questions cannot be asked in such
assessment.
• We need a new assessment system that looks for
imagination, creativity, critical thinking and the ability to
learn quickly, when there is need to know. The emphasis
needs to change from ‘What is the answer?’ to ‘how will you
find the answer?’. Use of the Internet should be allowed
during examinations.
• Fair evaluation of such a new assessment system is not
possible by human examiners for large numbers of
learners. More research on automated and continuous
evaluation of open-ended questions and tasks is needed.

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The future of Pedagogy
• ‘Spontaneous Order’ as an emergent process seems to be a
new mechanism in children’s education, in the presence of the
Internet.
• It is irrelevant to provide direct factual information, manually.
Reading, writing and arithmetic are of newer and lower priority.
• The role of memory in education does not need emphasis,
devices are playing that role.
• Encouragement can replace guidance. The teacher’s role is that
of a friend, not a guide or a mentor or a facilitator.

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Whether in the case of
elementary schools, of
scholarships, or of the class list at
the Universities, it affirmed that
evils of the same type tended to
follow in every case the
subjection of teaching to
examination.

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“the centralising influence which great prizes had on education, leading all schools to adopt the same
methods and thus cutting one deep rut in which all those engaged in education travelled ; and it then laid
special stress on the narrowing and depressing effect which reading with a view to satisfy the examiner's
mind necessarily has on the student.
• the temporary strengthening of the rote-faculties to the neglect of the rational faculties,
• the rapid forgetfulness of knowledge acquired,
• the cultivation of a quick superficiality and power of cleverly skimming a subject,
• the consequent incapacity for undertaking original work,
• the desire to appear to know rather than to know,
• the forming of judgment on great matters where judgment should come later,
• the conventional treatment of a subject and loss of spontaneity,
• the dependence upon highly skilled guidance,
• the belief in artifices and formulated answers,
• the beating out of small quantities of gold-leaf to cover great expanses,
• the diffusion of energies over many subjects for the sake of marks,
• the mental disinclination that supervenes to undertake work, which is not of a directly remunerative
character.
It was sufficient to affirm that in its broad features the system was hopelessly evil and to be mercilessly
condemned. It was a system from which the soul had been taken, leaving but an earthy remainder; it put
lower motives in the place of higher motives, and denied and discouraged the generous interest that the
young feel in the great subjects of knowledge.

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