I love this story.Kids are so amazing in the way they overcome initial tentativeness. If only we could learn to stop educating it out of them.

A few years back, an Indian company conducted an exercise called “A Hole in the Wall”. There was a large slum next to their office, a high wall seperating them. These folks broke the wall in one place to make a window and placed a computer there. Slum children, most of whom didn’t go to school were drawn to it immediately, as expected. But here’s the amazing thing: with no experience of using a computer, and with minimal or no instruction, these kids soon taught themselves to play games on the computer, type letters and even surf the net.

There is a primal feel to this story. For these kids who lived in very poor conditions, technology was like a horse drifted in their midst. Suprised at first, scared even, they soon learned to control it. And perhaps, rode it to a better place.

I get caught with the photos of the images from the sessions. I really want to get them in Photoshop, remove all the distracting backgrounds, get the color just right. In reality, they are just a reminder of what happened, and most people don’t notice. It’s really about the stories and what they learned.

My lesson, just because I can do something with technology doesn’t mean I should.

This is great stuff.

I love technology. However, I am not fond of using technology just for the sake of technology. A piece of chalk and a board worked well for a long time. A white board and dry erase marker does the same job just as well now. There are situations where this may be the correct “technology” to use. Other situations may benefit from a higher level of technology.

While at school I came up with a “Philosophy of Training” as part of my ePortfolio; it’s more of a definition really. Here it is. Training is getting the right information, to the right people, at the right time, using the right medium and methods.

It’s not terribly profound really; nevertheless, I think it sums it up fairly well. If we as learning professionals (or whatever we are) steer clients towards a more technological solution than they need, we are wasting their money. It’s even worse if we recommend or develop a technology solution that doesn’t result in the desired outcomes.