The future of learning: Get on with it by Sugata Mitra

Hands down, Sugata Mitra is the most inspiring person in education today, as he was yesterday and will be in the future. I have no doubt about it. Period.

I've had a pleasure to see his talks twice, the first time in spring 2008 and the last time in winter 2010. At both times, it also happened that we had some time to talk together. Those talks have been so formative to me.

To give an example, the first time I met him it was in a shady hotel bar in Romania. He was the keynote speaker of the event, and when my colleague introduced us, I had no idea who this small, round-faced Indian man was. I had not looked at the programme, I had not heard the buzz and anyway, I was not expecting too much.

With a couple of moments he had my full attention, he was telling me that he was a physicist  - we were in an education conference! And that he considered kids self-organising themselves around a computer when learning like electrons self-organise around atom's nucleus. I loved the idea! And the next day, I loved his talk! I still have a recording of it somewhere. Some years later, so it goes, self-organising appeared as a central theme of my doctoral thesis!

Enjoy the talk!
Ps. I found another posting that I wrote about him in 2008 at FlossePosse with the recording.