返回首页

SugataMitra_2007P-_展示儿童如何自我教学_

I have a tough job to do. 我今天的任务很艰巨。
You know, when I looked at the profile of the audience here, with their connotations and design, in all its forms, and with so much and so many people working 因为我看了在座各位的档案介绍, 知道各位都来自不同的背景 经验丰富,而且都与很多人一起
profile:n.轮廓;简介;形象;外形;v.扼要介绍;概述;写简介; connotations:内涵;含蓄;隐含意义(connotation的复数);
on collaborative and networks, and so on, that I wanted to tell you, 相互合作,构建网络等等,我想告诉大家,
collaborative:adj.合作的,协作的;
I wanted to build an argument for primary education in a very specific context . 我想从一个非常具体的方面 来和大家讨论初等教育。
primary education:初等教育; specific:adj.特殊的,特定的;明确的;详细的;[药]具有特效的;n.特性;细节;特效药; context:n.环境;上下文;来龙去脉;
In order to do that in 20 minutes, I have to bring out four ideas -- it's like four pieces of a puzzle . 在仅有的20分钟里,我要提出四点内容 它们就像四块拼图一样。
bring out:出版,生产;使显示;说出; puzzle:n.谜;疑问;智力游戏;不解之谜;v.迷惑;使困惑;
And if I succeed in doing that, maybe you would go back with the thought that you could build on and perhaps help me do my work. 如果我成功的阐述了这四点, 你们可能回头会考虑 贡献一些力量或者帮助我完成我的工作。
The first piece of the puzzle is remoteness and the quality of education. 那么首先第一块拼图是 偏远程度和教育质量之间的关系。
remoteness:n.遥远;偏僻;细微;时间久远;
Now, by remoteness I mean two or three different kinds of things. 偏远程度的意思不止一个。
Of course, remoteness in its normal sense, which means that as you go further and further away from an urban center, you get to remoter areas. 当然,它通常是指 比如说,当你从闹市区开始走, 越走越远,那么你就到了相对而言更远的区域。
urban:adj.城市的;都市的;城镇的;都市音乐的; remoter:遥远的;偏僻的;远程的(remote的比较级);
What happens to education? 这会对教育有什么影响?
The second or a different kind of remoteness is that within the large metropolitan areas all over the world, you have pockets, like slums , or shanty towns, or poorer areas, which are socially and economically remote from the rest of the city, so it's us and them. 偏远地区的第二个或者另一种意思是 在世界各地的大城市里, 都有贫民窟,贫民区, 它们从社会地位和经济情况来看, 相对城市其它地区较为落后,也就是贫富悬殊。
metropolitan:adj.大都市的;大主教辖区的;宗主国的;n.大城市人;大主教;宗主国的公民; slums:n.贫民,[经]贫民区(slum的复数); v.到贫民窟去; shanty:n.(美)棚屋;下等酒馆;海员号子;vi.居住于小棚屋; economically:adv.经济地;在经济上;节俭地;
What happens to education in that context? 从这点意义上看,教育又会受到什么影响?
So keep both of those ideas of remoteness. 请记住这两个关于偏远程度的定义。
We made a guess. The guess was that schools in remote areas do not have good enough teachers. 我们做了个猜测。这个猜测是 偏远地区的学校没有合格的教师。
If they do have, they cannot retain those teachers; they do not have a good enough infrastructure . 即使有,学校也很难留住这些教师; 他们缺乏良好的基础设施。
retain:v.保留;保持;持有;继续拥有; infrastructure:n.基础设施;公共建设;下部构造;
And if they had some infrastructure, they have difficulty maintaining it. 即使有一些设施, 学校也很难维护这些设施。
maintaining:n.维护;保养;v.维持;保养;(maintain的现在分词)
But I wanted to check if this is true. So what I did last year was we hired a car, looked up on Google , found a route into northern India from New Delhi 我想验证这个猜测是否与事实相符。所以去年, 我们租了一辆车,在Google上 查到一条从新德里到印度北部地区的路线。
Google:谷歌;谷歌搜索引擎; route:n.路线;路途;固定线路;途径;v.按某路线发送; Delhi:n.德里(印度城市名);
which, you know, which did not cross any big cities or any big metropolitan centers. Drove out about 300 kilometers, and wherever we found a school, administered a set of standard tests, and then took those test results and plotted it on a graph. 这条路不经过任何大城市, 或都市中心。我们开沿路了300公里, 每当找到一个学校,我们就进行一套标准测试, 将测试结果制成图表。
administered:v.管理;治理(国家);执行;给予;提供;(administer的过去分词和过去式) standard:n.标准;水准;旗;度量衡标准;adj.标准的;合规格的;公认为优秀的; plotted:v.密谋;暗中策划;标出;绘制(图表);(plot的过去分词和过去式)
The graph was interesting, although you need to consider it carefully. 这张图很有意思,当然,你需要很仔细地斟酌。
I mean, this is a very small sample; you should not generalize from it. 我是说,这只是一个很小的样本;我们不能以偏概全。
generalize:vt.概括;推广;使...一般化;vi.形成概念;
But it was quite obvious , quite clear, that for this particular route that I had taken, the remoter the school was, the worse its results seemed to be. 但这张图很清楚,让人一目了然, 在我所选择的这条路线上, 学校越偏远,测试的结果越差。
obvious:adj.明显的;显著的;平淡无奇的;
That seemed a little damning , and I tried to correlate it with things like infrastructure, or with the availability of electricity and things like that. 这挺让人担忧的。 我试图将结果与一些因素联系起来,比如基础设施 或者电力供应等等。
damning:adj.谴责的;诅咒的;可以定罪的;n.咒诅;v.该死,混账;谴责;(damn的现在分词) correlate:vi.关联;vt.使有相互关系;互相有关系;n.相关物;相关联的人;adj.关联的; availability:n.可用性;有效性;实用性; electricity:n.电力;电流;强烈的紧张情绪;
To my surprise, it did not correlate. 出乎意料的是,这些因素与测试结果并无关系。
It did not correlate with the size of classrooms. 测试结果与班级人数,
It did not correlate with the quality of the infrastructure. 基础设施,
It did not correlate with the poverty levels. It did not correlate. 贫穷程度无关。完全没有关系。
poverty:n.贫困;困难;缺少;低劣;
But what happened was that when I administered a questionnaire to each of these schools, with one single question for the teachers, which was, would you like to move to an urban, metropolitan area? 后来,我在每个学校都做了一个问卷调查。 问卷上只问老师们一个问题: 你愿意搬到城市去吗?
questionnaire:n.问卷;调查表;
69 percent of them said yes, and as you can see from that, they say yes just a little bit out of Delhi, and they say no when you hit the rich suburbs of Delhi -- because, you know, those are relatively better off areas. 从图上可以看出,69%的人做出了肯定的回答, 教师表示愿意去距离德里稍远一点的地区, 而对于德里富裕的近郊,教师们表示不愿意 -- 因为,你知道,那些郊区的条件相对很好。
as you can see:正如你所看到的;你是知道的; suburbs:n.郊外(suburb的复数); relatively:adv.相当程度上;相当地;相对地;
And then from 200 kilometers out of Delhi, the answer is consistently yes. 然后,德里开外200公里的范围内,答案一直是“愿意”。
consistently:adv.一贯地;一致地;坚实地;
I would imagine that a teacher who comes or walks into class every day thinking that, I wish I was in some other school, probably has a deep impact on what happens to the results. 我可以想像得到,一位老师走进教室, 心里每天都盼望着自己是在另一个更好的学校工作, 这很可能会严重影响教学的质量。
impact:n.影响;效果;碰撞;冲击力;v.挤入,压紧;撞击;对…产生影响;
So it looked as though teacher motivation and teacher migration was a powerfully correlated thing with what was happening in primary schools, as opposed to whether the children have enough to eat, 由此看来,教师的工作动力和人员流动 相对于孩子是否能吃饱穿暖, 与班级人数超员等因素而言
motivation:n.动机;积极性;推动; migration:n.迁移;迁徙;转移;移居; powerfully:adv.强大地;强烈地;非常; correlated:v.相互关联影响;相互依赖;(correlate的过去式和过去分词) opposed:adj.强烈反对; v.反对(计划、政策等); (oppose的过去分词和过去式)
and whether they are packed tightly into classrooms and that sort of thing. It appears that way. 对于小学教育有着更加深远影响。 事情看似如此。
tightly:adv.紧紧地;坚固地;
When you take education and technology , then I find in the literature that, you know, things like websites, collaborative environments -- you've been listening to all that in the morning -- 当谈到教育和科技,我在资料上读到过, 网站,协作环境 -- 你每天早上都在听 --
technology:n.技术;工艺;术语; literature:n.文学;文献;文艺;著作;
it's always piloted first in the best schools, the best urban schools, and, according to me, bias is the result. 总是在最好的学校,或城里最好的学校,进行试点。 在我看来,这些都是片面看问题的结果。
according to:根据,据说; bias:adv.使有偏见;n.偏见;偏心;偏爱;v.使有偏见;使偏向;adj.斜的;[电]偏动的;
The literature -- one part of it, the scientific literature, consistently blames ET as being over-hyped and under-performing. 这些资料 -- 其中有一些是科学著作, 不停指责教育科技太浮躁,没有发挥作用。
scientific:adj.科学的,系统的;
The teachers always say, well, it's fine, but it's too expensive for what it does. 老师们经常说,恩,还行吧,但是教育科技的性价比太低了。
Because it's being piloted in a school where the students are already getting, let's say, 80 percent of whatever they could do. 因为,事实证明,学生在学校里原本能得到 比如说,八十分。
You put in this new super-duper technology, and now they get 83 percent. 采用了这种高新科技之后,他们可以考到八十三分。
super-duper:adj.了不起的,极好的;
So the principal looks at it and says, 3 percent for 300,000 dollars? Forget it. 结果校长看了以后说: 三十万美元就换来百分之三的提高?算了吧。
principal:adj.主要的;资本的;n.首长;校长;资本;当事人;
If you took the same technology and piloted it into one of those remote schools where the score was 30 percent, and, let's say, took that up to 40 percent, that will be a completely different thing. 如果将同样的技术运用在那些偏远地区的学校里, 让学生的分数从三十分提高到,比如,四十分, 那就完全是另一回事了。
So the relative change that ET, Educational Technology would make, would be far greater at the bottom of the pyramid than at the top, but we seem to be doing it the other way about. 这样,教育科技, 在金字塔底部所能发挥的作用,比在顶端的效果更为显著。 但是,我们却反其道而行之。
Educational:adj.教育的;有关教育的;有教育意义的
So I came to this conclusion that ET should reach the underprivileged first, not the other way about. 于是,我得出结论:教育科技 应当首先照顾弱势群体,而不是优势群体。
conclusion:n.结论;结局;推论; underprivileged:adj.贫困的;被剥夺基本权力的;社会地位低下的;
And finally came the question of, how do tackle teacher perception ? 最终的问题是,如何转变教师的思想观念?
finally:adv.终于;最终;(用于列举)最后;彻底地; tackle:v.处理; n.用具; perception:n.感知;知觉;看法;洞察力;
Whenever you go to a teacher and show them some technology the teacher's first reaction is, you cannot replace a teacher with a machine -- it's impossible. 当你向一位老师展示某样新科技, 她(他)的第一反应肯定是: 你不能用一台机器来取代老师 -- 绝对不可能。
reaction:n.反应,感应;反动,复古;反作用;
I don't know why it's impossible, but, even for a moment, if you did assume that it's impossible -- I have a quotation from Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer whom I met in Colombo, and he said something which completely solves this problem. 我不知道为什么不可能,但是, 即使你认为这不可能 -- 我想引用Sir Arthur C. Clarke的一句话, 他是我在斯里兰卡首都科伦坡遇到的一位科幻小说作家, 他的这句话回答了这个问题。
assume:v.承担;假定;采取;呈现; quotation:n.报价;引用;引文;引语; science fiction:科幻小说;
He said a teacher than can be replaced by a machine should be. 他说,如果一个老师连机器都不如,那么就该被机器代替。
So, you know, it puts the teacher into a tough bind , you have to think. 这就给老师们敲响了警钟,你得伤脑筋了。
bind:v.结合;装订;有约束力;过紧;n.捆绑;困境;讨厌的事情;植物的藤蔓;
Anyway, so I'm proposing that an alternative primary education, whatever alternative you want, is required where schools don't exist, where schools are not good enough, where teachers are not available or where teachers are not good enough, for whatever reason. 总之,我认为我们需要一套选择性初等教育, 这种教育方式满足各种需求,帮助没有学校、 学校条件差、教师资源缺乏、 或是师资质量不够好的地区,应对各种情况。
proposing:v.提议;建议;打算;计划;求婚;(propose的现在分词) alternative:adj.供选择的;选择性的;交替的;n.二中择一;供替代的选择;
If you happen to live in a part of the world where none of this applies , then you don't need an alternative education. 如果你所在的地区不符合上述任何情况, 那么你就不需要这样的补救措施了。
applies:v.适用;申请;运用;专心;(apply的第三人称单数)
So far I haven't come across such an area, except for one case. I won't name the area, but somewhere in the world people said, we don't have this problem, because we have perfect teachers and perfect schools. 到目前为止,我只见到过一个地方不属于那些情况。是哪我就不说了。 总之,在这么一个地方,有人告诉我,这里没有这些个问题, 因为我们的老师和学校都是十全十美的。
come across:偶然遇见;给人以…的印象;
There are such areas, but -- anyway, I'd never heard that anywhere else. 这样的地方的确存在,但是 -- 我在其他地方从来没有听人这么说过。
I'm going to talk about children and self-organization, and a set of experiments which sort of led to this idea of what might an alternative education be like. 我现在来谈谈儿童与自我组织能力, 以及一系列实验 来阐释什么是选择性教学。
They're called the hole-in-the-wall experiments. 这些实验被称为“墙中洞实验”。
hole-in-the-wall:adj.简陋的;狭小的;
I'll have to really rush through this. They're a set of experiments. 我必须一口气把它介绍完。这是一系列实验。
rush through:快速通过;仓促完成;
The first one was done in New Delhi in 1999. 第一个实验是1999年在新德里进行的。
And what we did over there was pretty much simple. 我们在那里的工作非常简单。
I had an office in those days which bordered a slum, an urban slum, so there was a dividing wall between our office and the urban slum. 我当时的办公室在一个城市贫民窟旁边, 办公室和贫民窟之间隔着一道墙。
They cut a hole inside that wall -- which is how it has got the name hole-in-the-wall -- and put a pretty powerful PC into that hole, sort of embedded into the wall 墙上开了一个洞 -- 顾名思义 墙中洞 -- 在洞里安装一台强大的个人电脑,电脑就这样被嵌在墙上。
embedded:adj.嵌入式的;植入的;内含的;v.嵌入(embed的过去式和过去分词形式);
so that its monitor was sticking out at the other end, a touchpad similarly embedded into the wall, put it on high-speed Internet, put the Internet Explorer there, put it on Altavista.com -- in those days -- and just left it there. 它的监视器从墙的另一侧露出来, 一个触控平板也被嵌在墙上, 电脑链接着高速互联网,上面还有网络浏览器, 连接上了当时热门的网站Altavista.com -- 然后守株待兔。
touchpad:n.触摸屏设备,触摸板; similarly:adv.同样地;类似于; Explorer:n.探险者;勘探者;考察者;
And this is what we saw. 这是当时的情景。
So that was my office in IT'. Here's the hole-in-the-wall. 那是我的办公室。那个就是“墙中洞”。
About eight hours later we found this kid. 大概过了八个小时,我们发现了这个孩子。
To the right is this eight-year-old child who -- and to his left is a six-year-old girl who is not very tall. 右边的那个孩子八岁大 -- 他旁边的小个子女孩是六岁。
And what he was doing was he was teaching her to browse . 他正在教她如何浏览网页。
browse:v.浏览;吃草;n.浏览;吃草;
So it sort of raised more questions than it answered. 这个情形非但没有解答疑惑,反而提出了更多新问题。
Is this real? Does the language matter, because he's not supposed to know English? 这可能吗?语言不通会成问题吗, 因为他不懂英语啊?
supposed:adj.误信的;所谓的;v.认为;假设;设想;(suppose的过去分词和过去式)
Will the computer last, or will they break it and steal it, 这台电脑能在那保存多久?他们会把它拆下来偷走吗?
- and did anyone teach them? - 有其他人事先教过他们吗?
The last question is what everybody said, but you know, 最后这个问题都把我们问住了,
I mean, they must have poked their head over the wall and asked the people in your office can you show me how to do it, and then somebody taught him. 他们肯定要把头伸到墙的另一头 来问办公室里的人 你能教我怎么操作吗,然后才会有人教他们。
poked:v.捅,杵;推;捅;戳;探;伸出;探出(poke的过去分词和过去式)
So I took the experiment out of Delhi and repeated it, this time in a city called Chifpuri' in the center of India, where I was assured that nobody had ever taught anybody anything. 于是,我离开德里,到其他地方进行同样的实验。 这一次我们来到印度中部城市Chifpuri*。 我听说所有当地人都是自学成才的。
assured:adj.确定的;自信的;n.被保险人;v.保证;确实;(assure的过去分词和过去式);
(Laughter) (笑声)
So it was a warm day, and the hole-in-the-wall was on that decrepit old building. This is the first kid who came there; he later on turned out to be a 13-year-old school dropout . 当天天气很热,“墙中洞” 被开在那座斑驳的老建筑上。这是第一个靠近的孩子。 他后来在13岁的时候辍学了。
decrepit:adj.衰老的;破旧的; dropout:n.退学学生;脱落;信号失落;
He came there and he started to fiddle around with the touchpad. 他走过来,开始随意摆弄触控板。
fiddle around:玩弄;吊儿郎当;虚度光阴;不务正业;
Very quickly he noticed that when he moves his finger on the touchpad something moves on the screen -- and later on he told me, I have never seen a television where you can do something. 很快,他注意到,当手指在触控板上滑动时, 屏幕上的一个东西也在跟着动 -- 后来他告诉我,我从来没有见过 这样一台能够受人摆弄的电视机。
So he figured that out. It took him over two minutes to figure out that he was doing things to the television. 他找出规律了。只花了两分钟, 他就明白了自己在控制这台电视机。
And then, as he was doing that, he made an accidental click by hitting the touchpad -- you'll see him do that. 正当这时,他不小心点击了 触控板 -- 你们可以在屏幕上看到。
accidental:n.偶然;[乐]临时符;adj.不测的;非本质的;
He did that, and the Internet Explorer changed page. 他点击了触控板,结果网络浏览器变换了网页。
Eight minutes later, he looked from his hand to the screen, and he was browsing : he was going back and forth . 八分钟以后,他看了看手,又看了看屏幕, 他正在浏览网页:游刃有余。
browsing:v.随便看看;浏览;翻阅;浏览信息;(browse的现在分词) back and forth:前后移动的,来回的,反复的;
When that happened, he started calling all the neighborhood children, like, children would come and see what's happening over here. 接着,他开始把邻居家的孩子招来, 这些孩子都过来凑热闹。
neighborhood:n.附近;地区;街坊;adj.附近的;
And by the evening of that day, 70 children were all browsing. 到了傍晚,共有70个孩子在上网。
So eight minutes and an embedded computer seemed to be all that we needed there. 这样看来,在这个地方我们只需 八分钟的时间和一台嵌入式电脑就足够了。
So we thought that this is what was happening: that children in groups can self-instruct themselves to use a computer and the Internet. But under what circumstances ? 我们得出这样的结论: 一群儿童能够使用电脑和网络 进行自我教学。但是,这需要哪些条件呢?
circumstances:n.情况;环境;情形;(circumstance的复数)
At this time there was a -- the main question was about English. 现在,我们主要的问题在于英语。
People said, you know, you really ought to have this in Indian languages, so I said, have what, shall I translate the Internet into some Indian language? That's not possible. 有人说,你们应该弄个印度语版本的电脑和网络, 我说,什么,要我把整个互联网 翻译成印度语?那怎么可能。
translate:v.翻译;被翻译;被译成;(使)转变;
So it has to be the other way about. 所以,必须想出另一个办法。
But let's see, how do the children tackle the English language? 我们来看看,这些孩子们是怎么克服不会英语这一难题的。
I took the experiment out to north eastern India, to a village called Madantusi where, for some reason, there was no English teacher, so the children had not learned English at all. 这一次的实验被放在印度东部 一个叫做Madantusi的村庄。 这里,不知为什么,没有英文教师, 这里的孩子一点英文都不懂。
eastern:adj.东方的;向东的;东部的;东方国家的;n.东方人;东正教信徒;
And I built a similar hole-in-the-wall. 我设了一个“墙中洞”。
One big difference in the villages, as opposed to the urban slums: there were more girls than boys who came to the kiosk . 与城市中的贫民窟不同的是,在这个村里, 来看“墙中洞”的女孩比男孩多。
kiosk:n.凉亭;公用电话亭;报摊;
In the urban slums, the girls tend to stay away. 而在城市贫民窟,女孩们通常躲得远远的。
I left the computer there with lots of CDs -- I didn't have any Internet -- and came back three months later. 我把一些CD撂在电脑那里 -- 没有连接网络 -- 过了三个月再回来。
So when I came back there, I found these two kids, eight- and 12-year-olds, who were playing a game on the computer. 我回来之后,看到这两个孩子。 一个八岁,一个十二岁,他们在用电脑打游戏。
And as soon as they saw me they said, we need a faster processor and a better mouse. 他们一看到我就说: “我们需要一个更快的处理器和一个好一点的鼠标。”
as soon as:一…就; processor:n.[计]处理器;处理程序;加工者;
(Laughter) (笑声)
So I was real surprised. 我大吃一惊。
You know, how on earth did they know all this? 他们到底怎么琢磨出来的啊?
And they said, well, we've picked it up from the CDs. 他们说,咳,我们就是跟CD学的。
So I said, but how did you understand what's going on over there? 我又问,但是你们怎么明白上面说的是什么呢?
So they said, well, you've left this machine which talks only in English, so we had to learn English. 他们说,你把这台机器放在这里, 它只显示英语,那我们就只好去学英语啦。
So then I measured , and they were using 200 English words with each other 后来我数了一下,他们大约用了两百的英文单词,你教我,我教你
measured:adj.缓慢谨慎的; v.测量; (measure的过去分词和过去式)
- mispronounced , but correct usage -- words like exit, stop, find, save, that kind of thing, not only to do with the computer but in their day-to-day conversations. - 虽然单词的发音不标准,但是,他们都用对了 -- 像退出,停止,找到,保存,这些字眼, 他们不仅在玩电脑的时候使用,而且还把它们用在日常对话中。
mispronounced:vi.发错音;vt.发错音; usage:n.使用;利用;利用率;惯用法; day-to-day:adj.日常的;逐日的;
So, Madantusi seemed to show that language is not a barrier; in fact they may be able to teach themselves the language if they really wanted to. 由此看来,Madantusi 的孩子们似乎证明了,语言并不是一个障碍。 他们实际上有能力自学新的语言, 只要他们真的想学。
Finally, I got some funding to try this experiment out to see if these results are replicable; if they happen everywhere else. 终于,我筹到了足够的资金来做这个实验, 看看在其它地方,会不会得到相同的结果。
funding:n.基金;资金;提供资金;v.为…提供资金;拨款给;(fund的现在分词)
India is a good place to do such an experiment in because we have all the ethnic diversities , all the -- you know, the genetic diversity , all the racial diversities , and also all the socio-economic diversities. 印度是做这个实验的好地方, 因为,我们这里集合了民族多样性, 基因多样性,种族多样性, 另外,还有社会经济多样性。
ethnic:adj.种族的;人种的; diversities:n.差异;参差;(diversities是diversity的复数); genetic:adj.基因的;遗传学的; diversity:n.差异(性):多样性:多样化: racial:adj.种族的;人种的; socio-economic:adj.社会经济的;
So I could actually choose samples to cover a cross-section that would cover practically the whole world. 所以,我可以找到能够代表 世界各地情况的实验样本。
cross-section:n.横截面;横断面; practically:adv.实际地;几乎;事实上;
So I did this for almost five years, and this experiment really took us all the way across the length and breadth of India. 我在上面花了近五年的时间,这项实验 带我们走边了印度的各个角落。
breadth:n.宽度;(知识、兴趣等)广泛;
This is the Himalayas. Up in the north, very cold. 这里是喜马拉雅山区,在最北边,天寒地冻。
I also had to check or invent an engineering design which would survive outdoors, and I was using regular, normal PCs, so I needed different climates, for which India is also great because we have very cold, very hot, and so on. 我必须找到或者开发一种合理的布局, 它能让我使用的普通电脑适应各种户外条件, 我需要在各种气候条件下做实验,印度正好满足了我, 因为我们的有寒冷的气候,又有很热的气候。
engineering:n.工程;工程学;v.密谋策划;设计制造;改变…的基因;(engineer的现在分词)
This is the desert to the west, near the Pakistan border. 这里是西部沙漠,靠近巴基斯坦边境。
And you see here a little clip of -- one of these villages -- the first thing that these children did was to find a website to teach themselves the English alphabet. 这里有一小段视频 -- 其中一个村庄 -- 这些孩子所做的第一件事便是找到一个网站 来自学英文字母。
clip:v.剪辑;修剪;削减;固定;n.夹;夹子;速度;钳;
Then to central India -- very warm, moist , fishing villages where humidity is a very big killer of electronics . 这是印度中部的一个渔村,这里气候闷热, 很可能让电子设备出故障。
moist:adj.潮湿的;多雨的;含泪的;n.潮湿; humidity:n.[气象]湿度;湿气; electronics:n.电子学;电子工业;
So we had to solve all the problems we had without air conditioning and with very poor power, so most of the solutions that came out used little blasts of air put at the right places to keep the machines running. 在没有空调,电力供应不足的情况下, 我们必须想办法克服所有困难。 最后,我们用风扇 作为动力带动机器的运转。
air conditioning:n.空调系统;空气调节; blasts:[力]爆炸;一阵;
I want to just cut this short. We did this over and over again . 我想长话短说。我们在各个地方都做了同样的实验。
over and over again:adv.一再地;反复不断地;
This sequence is also nice. This is a small child, a six-year-old, telling his eldest sister what to do. 这次实验很有成效。这是一个六岁的小男孩, 他在教自己的姐姐。
sequence:n.顺序; v.按顺序排列; eldest:adj.最年长的;年事最高的(old的最高级);n.最年长者;
And this happens very often with these computers, that the younger children are found teaching the older ones. 一个年纪小的孩子用电脑 教比自己年纪大的孩子,这种情况比比皆是。
What did we find? We found that six- to 13-year-olds can self-instruct in a connected environment, irrespective of anything that we could measure. 结论是什么?我们发现,六岁到十三岁的孩子 能够在群体中自我教学, 但原因尚未明确。
irrespective of:prep.不考虑;不管;不受…影响;adj.不顾;不考虑;
So if they have access to the computer, they will teach themselves, including intelligence . 只要他们面前放着电脑,他们就能自我教学,包括学习智能信息。
intelligence:n.智力;智慧;才智;(尤指关于敌国的)情报;
I couldn't find a single correlation with anything, but it had to be in groups. 我找不出任何原因,但知道这必须发生在群体中。
correlation:n.[数]相关,关联;相互关系;
And that may be of great, you know, interest to this group because all of you are talking about groups. 这对这个群体来说可能十分有利 因为你们大家都属于某个群体。
So here was the power of what a group of children can do if you lift the adult intervention . 现在大家看到一群孩子能够做什么了, 即使没有大人的干预。
intervention:n.介入;调停;妨碍;
Just a quick idea of the measurements . 我再简单介绍一下测量的方法。
measurements:n.测量值,尺寸(measurement的复数);
We took standard statistical techniques , so I'm going to not talk about that. 我们使用的是标准数据统计技术,在这里就不多讲了。
statistical:adj.统计的;统计学的; techniques:n.技巧;技艺;工艺;技术;(technique的复数)
But we got a clean learning curve , almost exactly the same as what you would get in a school. 我们绘制了一个清晰的学习进度曲线图, 这和学生在学校里的学习进度几乎是一样的。
learning curve:n.经验学习曲线;
I'll leave it at that, because, I mean, it sort of says it all, doesn't it? 我就不多解释了, 因为,这都一目了然了,不是吗?
What could they learn to do? 孩子们能自学什么?
Basic Windows functions, browsing, painting, chatting and email, games and educational material, music downloads, playing video. 基本的操作,浏览,画图,聊天,电子邮件, 游戏,教学资料,下载音乐,播放视频。
In short, what all of us does. 一句话,我们会做的,他们都会。
And over 300 children will become computer literate and be able to do all of these things in six months with one computer. 一台电脑在短短六个月时间里,能使超过三百名儿童 学会使用电脑和所有操作。
literate:adj.受过教育的;精通文学的;n.学者;
So how do they do that? 他们怎么办到的呢?
If you calculated the actual time of access, it would work out to minutes per day, so that's not how it's happening. 如果你对他们的使用时间进行计算, 会发现,平均每天才有几分钟时间。 所以这不能说明什么。
What you have, actually, is there is one child operating the computer. 实际情况是,一个孩子在操纵电脑,
And surrounding him are usually three other children who are advising him on what they should do. 他身边,有三四个孩子围着看, 告诉他该干什么。
advising:v.劝告;忠告;建议;通知;(advise的现在分词)
If you test them, all four will get the same scores in whatever you ask them. 如果你测试他们,这四个孩子会得到同样的分数,不管回答什么问题。
Around these four are usually a group of about 16 children who are also advising, usually wrongly , about everything that's going on on the computer. 而围着这四个孩子的其他十六个孩子 也在提建议,但是 他们对电脑操作建议往往是错的。
wrongly:adv.错误地;不恰当地;不公正地;
And all of them also will clear a test given on that subject. 他们的测试结果也是相同的。
So they are learning as much by watching as they learn by doing. 所以,他们通过旁观也学到了同样的学习效果。
It seems counter-intuitive to adult learning, but remember, eight-year-olds live in a society where most of the time they are told, don't do this, you know, don't touch the whiskey bottle. 这看起来跟成人的学习方法相去甚远, 但是,别忘了,八岁的孩子们 生活在一个不由他们自己做决定的社会中, 比如当大人说,不许碰那瓶威士忌,
counter-intuitive:adj.反直觉的;违反语感的; whiskey:n.威士忌酒;adj.威士忌酒的;
So what does the eight-year-old do? 一个八岁的孩子会怎么做呢?
Observes very carefully how a whiskey bottle should be touched. 他会仔细观察大人是怎么拿那瓶威士忌的。
Observes:遵守;观察(observe的第三人称单数);
And if you tested him, he would answer every question correctly on that topic. 如果你测试他, 他能过正确回答每一个关于这个话题的问题。
So they seem to be able to acquire very quickly. 他们似乎学得很快。
acquire:v.获得;取得;学到;捕获;
So what was the conclusion over the six years of work? 那么,这长达六年的研究告诉我们什么呢?
It was that primary education can happen on its own, or parts of it can happen on its own. 它告诉我们,初等教育可以通过自学完成, 或者说,在一定程度上是这样的。
It does not have to be imposed from the top downwards . 不一定非要至上而下灌输。
imposed:adj.强加的;施加的;应用的;v.欺骗(impose的过去分词);把…强加于; downwards:adv.向下,往下;
It could perhaps be a self-organizing system, so that was -- and the second bit that I wanted to tell you, that children can self-organize and attain an educational objective . 可以通过一套自主选择的系统, 这也就是我想说的第二点, 儿童可以通过自我学习实现某个教学目标。
self-organizing:n.[计]自组织; attain:v.得到;(通常经过努力)获得;达到(某年龄、水平、状况); objective:n.目标; adj.客观的;
The third piece was on values, and again, to put it very briefly , 第三点和价值观有关系,简单的说,
briefly:adv.简要地;简短地;暂时地;
I conducted a test over 500 children spread across all over India. 我给印度各地超过五百名儿童做过一个测试。
conducted:v.组织;安排;实施;执行;指挥;带领;引导;(conduct的过去分词和过去式)
and asked them -- I gave them about 68 different values-oriented questions and simply asked them their opinions. 我问他们 -- 我给他们大约68个 关于价值观的问题,简单问了他们的观点。
We got all sorts of opinions. Yes, no or I don't know. 他们的回答各种各样:对,错,或者我不知道。
I simply took those questions where I got 50 percent yesses and 50 percent nos, so I was able to get a collection of 16 such statements . 有一些地方,百分之五十的问题回答对,另外百分之五十回答错, 我从中找出16句这样的回答。
statements:n.说明; v.(英国)对儿童进行特殊教育评估认定; (statement的第三人称单数和复数)
These were areas where the children were clearly confused , because half said yes and half said no. 有些地方的孩子对价值观的看法有些混乱 因为他们一半人说对,一半人说错。
confused:adj.困惑的; v.使糊涂; (confuse的过去分词和过去式)
A typical example being, sometimes it is necessary to tell lies. 一个很典型的问题是:有时候,说谎是必要的。
typical:adj.典型的;特有的;象征性的;
They don't have a way to determine which way to answer this question; perhaps none of us do. 他们无法回答这个问题; 也许我们也不知道答案。
determine:v.决定;确定;测定;查明;形成;影响;裁决;安排;
So I leave you with this third question. 我把第三个问题留给大家。
Can technology alter the acquisition of values? 科技能够改变价值观的习得吗?
acquisition:n.获得物,获得;
Finally, self-organizing systems, about which again I won't say too much because you've been hearing all about it. 最后一点,自我教学系统, 我不会多说, 因为我已经说了很多了。
Natural systems are all self-organizing: galaxies , molecules , cells, organisms , societies -- except for the debate about an intelligent designer. 自然界的各个系统都是有自成体系的: 星系,分子,细胞,有机体,社会 -- 智能设计虽然有争议
galaxies:n.银河; (galaxy的复数) molecules:n.[化学]分子,微粒;[化学]摩尔(molecule的复数); organisms:n.[生物]生物体(organism的复数);[生物]有机体; debate:n.辩论;争论;考虑;v.辩论;争论;考虑; intelligent:adj.有才智的;悟性强的;聪明的;有智力的
But at this point in time, as far as science goes, it's self-organization. 但是从目前看来,只要随着科学的发展, 它还是自成体系的。
as far as:至于…;
But other examples are traffic jams, stock market , society and disaster recovery , terrorism and insurgency . 更多的例子有堵车,股市, 社会和灾后重建,恐怖主义和暴乱。
stock market:股票市场;证券市场;股票交易; disaster:n.灾难,灾祸;不幸; recovery:n.恢复,复原;痊愈;重获; terrorism:n.恐怖主义; insurgency:n.叛乱;暴动;叛乱状态;
And you know about the Internet-based self-organizing systems. 还有你们熟知的以互联网为基础的自我运行体系。
Internet-based:adj.基于互联网的;以网际网路为基础的;
So here are my four sentences then. 这是我的四点总结。
Remoteness affects the quality of education. 偏远程度影响教学质量。
Educational technology should be introduced into remote areas first and other areas later. 我们应当首先在偏远地区引入教育科技, 然后再到其它地区。
Values are acquired; doctrine and dogma are imposed -- the two opposing mechanisms . 价值观是后天习得的;教条是被灌输的 -- 这两者的本质是相反的。
doctrine:n.主义;学说;教义;信条; dogma:n.教条,教理;武断的意见; opposing:adj.对立的; v.反对(计划、政策等); (oppose的现在分词) mechanisms:n.机制;[机]机构(mechanism的复数);机械;[机]机构学;
And learning is most likely a self-organizing system. 学习近似于一个有自我组织性的系统。
If you put all the four together then it gives -- according to me -- it gives us a goal, a vision , for educational technology. 把这四句话放在一起 -- 我认为 -- 这让我们为教育科技树立了一个目标,一个远景:
vision:n.视力;美景;幻象;想象力;v.想象;显现;梦见;
And educational technology and pedagogy that is digital , automatic , fault-tolerant, minimally invasive , connected, and self-organized . 那就是数码化,自动化,容许出错, 最低干扰,连接网络,自成一体的教育科技和教学方法。
pedagogy:n.教育;教育学;教授法; digital:adj.数字的;手指的;n.数字;键; automatic:adj.自动的;无意识的;必然的;n.自动步枪;自动换挡汽车; minimally:adv.最低限度地;最低程度地; invasive:adj.侵略性的;攻击性的; self-organized:adj.自组织的;自发的;
As educationists, we have never asked for technology; we keep borrowing it. 作为教育工作者,我们从来没有要求使用教育科技;我们只是一直在借用科技。
PowerPoint is supposed to be considered a great educational technology, but it was not meant for education, it was meant for making board room presentations . 幻灯片是很好的教育科技, 但是它不专为教育服务,它的本意是用来做会议展示的。
presentations:n.展示;自我介绍;业务陈述(presentation的复数形式);
We borrowed it. Video conferencing . The personal computer itself. 我们把它借用过来。另外我们还借用了视频会议技术和个人电脑。
conferencing:n.会议技术;v.开会(conference的现在分词); personal computer:n.个人电脑;个人计算机;
I think it's time that the educationists made their own specs , and I have such a set of specs. This is a brief look at that. 我认为教育工作者们是时候拥有属于自己的远见了, 我就有一些这样的远见。在此简单浏览一下。
specs:abbr.规格,说明书(specifications);眼镜(spectacles);
And such a set of specs should produce the technology to address remoteness, values and violence . 这些远见应当制造出 能够解决偏远问题,价值观问题和暴力问题的科技。
violence:n.暴力;侵犯;激烈;歪曲;
So I thought I'd give it a name -- why don't we call it "out-doctrination." 我给它起了个名字 -- 就叫它 “教条冲破体系”。
And could this be a goal for educational technology in the future so I want to leave that as a thought with you. 我们能否把它作为教育科技将来的发展目标? 我想把它留给大家来做决定。
Thank you. 谢谢各位。
(Applause) (热烈掌声)