In watching videos for this week’s TED Tuesday, a common theme arose between my selections – education as a self-organized and self-sustaining process. Both Professor Sugatra Mitra and TED Curator Chris Anderson touch on these ideas in the videos I’ve posted.

Professor Mitra explains various experiments that he has done around the world as part of his “Hole in the Wall” project, placing computers in public locations and monitoring their use by children as self-teaching tools. He states that “when you have interest, you have education,” and outlines what has become of his project – the development of S.O.L.E.s, or self-organized learning environments. He sees this type of group learning as the key to pushing education in the future, similar to how Anderson credits web videos with the large “Crowd Accelerated Innovation” movement that is taking place in arenas from breakdancing to unicycling.

While I agree with the three parts of Anderson’s formula – a crowd, “light,” and desire – I don’t know that I necessarily see web videos alone taking over the education arena the way that he does. I think that for now, and for at least the next five years, web-based group learning will supplement a lot of traditional education in many developed regions, until we have better ways to learn and interact online. For more of those thoughts, check out PART ONE of “With interest comes education.” See the full post for videos from Professor Mitra and Anderson.

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