Opinion Article 8

Creating a Learning Revolution

Nicholas Negroponte, Mitchel Resnick, Justine Cassell
(MIT Media Lab)

Children are the future. If we hope to solve the world's major problems -- achieving world peace, healthy lives, economic development, and global sustainability -- we must provide richer learning opportunities for the world's children. An educated and creative population is, without a doubt, the best path to global health, wealth, and peace.

But throughout today's world, educational practices are woefully outdated. Even as scientific and technological advances have radically transformed agriculture, medicine, and industry, the way children learn has remained largely unchanged, based on ideas inherited from previous centuries.

New digital technologies are now providing an historic opportunity for fundamental and global-scale changes in children's learning and education. Just as advances in biotechnologies made possible the "green revolution" in agriculture, digital technologies are making possible a "learning revolution" in education. We believe that these new digital technologies can (and should) transform not only how children learn, but also what children learn, and who they learn with.

Guiding Principles

These changes will not happen automatically. Although declining costs will make digital technologies increasingly available to children around the world, access to computers and Internet connections is not enough. Many of the software products that are being developed for children today serve to narrow, rather than broaden, children's intellectual horizons. To create a true learning revolution, we must create technologies that support a new vision of learning and a new vision of children.

In our work towards this goal, we are guided by the following principles:

New Initiatives

We are already working on many of the ideas in research projects at the MIT Media Lab, and we are planning to create a major new research center that focuses explicitly on issues of children and learning. We are also working closely with 2B1, a new foundation that supports innovative educational uses of computers in the developing world.



Nicholas Negroponte is Founder and Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Laboratory - an interdisciplinary research centre that focuses on the study of future forms of communication. Negroponte is senior columnist for WIRED magazine (available online through HotWired).

Mitchel Resnick is Associate Professor at the MIT Media Laboratory, where is domain of research is how new technological tools can help bring about deep changes in how people think and learn. He is co-founder of the Computer Clubhouse, an afterschool learning centre for youth from under-served communities.

Justine Cassell is faculty at MIT's Media Laboratory. Her domain of research and interest is how autonomous agents and toys can be designed with psychosocial competencies, based on an understanding of human lingusistic, cognitive and social abilities.

Together they are working on many of the ideas in research projects at the MIT Media Lab, and are planning to create a major new research center that focuses explicitly on issues of children and learning. They also work closely with 2B1, a new foundation that supports innovative educational uses of computers in the developing world.


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