Physicist Sugata Mitra's research on 'Minimally Invasive Education' for mass computer literacy and the 'hole in the wall' (www.niitholeinthewall.com) experiment in India immediately struck a cord in me. I noted with interest the similarities between his findings in India in which he concluded that children learn to operate as well as play with a computer with minimum intervention, picking up skills and tasks by constructing their own learning environment, and my own practical experiences in secondary schools here in the UK as this methodology has been used for several years now in ICT (Information Communication Technology).

As the Head of an ICT department in an inner city secondary school in the northern industrial city of Sheffield, I have noted the performance of very varied ability pupils. The ICT department has mixed ability groups, leaving the teacher with learning objectives and lesson planning that have to fulfil the requirements of all the pupils. It is a well-known fact within ICT that the ability to read and write to a set standard does not inhibit ICT learning. In fact pupils with lower than average reading and writing skills have at times excelled in ICT. It appears that the 'hands on' approach to computers not only stimulates the pupil but also allows the pupil to exceed their own perceived limits. When this is recognised by the pupil the 'war' is won. Many pupils who are reluctant learners in most subjects become enthusiastic learners in the ICT rooms. For the lower ability learners ICT allows them to equal those around them, break down the cans and can-nots and in many situations reverse them completely. There have been many instances where friendships have grown between pupils of different abilities, race and religion where bullying once occurred. With no animosity between pupils, they share information regularly, showing each other a new technique to achieve an end, it also seems very evident that there is a strong bond between all the students regarding ICT as when one student discovers something new or interesting to do on the computers, within days the whole school knows and is doing the same.

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