The Hole-In-The-Wall experiment is one of the most amazing studies that show the ingeniousness of children. In 1999, Dr Mitra setup a computer with internet connection in the slums of India and watched children’s interaction with the computer. Only the monitor and the touch pad mouse was exposed to public though a hole in the wall in a public street. Dr Mitra then video taped people’s interaction with the ‘thing’ through a camera mounted to a tree across the street. Soon enough children discovered the computers and started to play with it. Without any instructions whatsoever the kids were able to discover MSPaint and start drawing and coloring. Children’s discoveries were astonishing, One day Dr. Mitra discovered that the kids had saved a document on the desktop that had the words “I LOVE INDIA” in it. He could not figure out how this document was created given the fact that the computer had no keyboard. Eventually one of the local boys showed him how it was done: The boy used the character map in Word to individually pick the letters and then increased the font size and colored the letters one by one. The kids had learn all this on their own.
They had no concept of files and programs. They had simply noticed that if they dragged and drop an mp3 icon on Windows Media Player icon music would start to play from the ‘thing’. They had no idea that the ‘thing’, as they called it, was a computer. They invented their own names for different things. They called mouse pointer sui, hindi for needle; they called the hourglass mouse pointer damru, hindi name for drums.
The fact that the computer interface was in English was not a hindrance to the kids at all. They were able to navigate internet and find and download hindi music mp3s. All this knowledge was passed through word of mouth between the kids.
The story of the Hole-In-The-Wall experiment has been out for a few years. You can find our more about it from here http://www.niitholeinthewall.com