Community Blackboard

Hole-in-the-Wall Education Limited (HiWEL) addresses development and computer literacy by allowing children to explore technology for themselves in a communal fashion, rather than relying on the one-way transmission of information in a traditional classroom setting. In order to promote technological development and strengthen community ties in India HiWEL has installed computer learning stations in playgrounds and other public places, allowing unrestricted access for area children.

HiWEL modifes the computers to meet local conditions. Special enclosures protect the learning stations from the elements, while improved fault tolerances for software reduce system downtime. A power management system designed by HiWEL allows the stations to run efficiently, reducing maintenance costs for each site.

MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte describes the project as a “shared blackboard,” an opportunity for children to collaboratively use an educational and creative space. Children form self-organized groups that share information and interests, creating a multiplier effect for each learning station. This self-guided style of “minimally-invasive education” seems to work: a paper in the Australian Journal of Educational Technology found that in some fields the technique is as effective as traditional classroom education while less expensive in the long run. This collaborative, interactive, model of education resembles the pre-computer classroom experiments of John Dewey and Bronson Alcott.

HiWEL hopes to turn the Hole-in-the-Wall learning stations into an international program. The program already receives support from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation. In 2005, the African Union sent a delegation to meet Indian education officials and children who had participated in the project.