Digital StudyHall
Kentaro Tarayama (Microsoft Research - India)
October 11, 2006
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There needs to be a hub in every place where the language of instruction changes.  (The
language of instruction in rural schools is often mandated by the government to be the 
local language -- different from the language of instruction in affluent schools, which
is English in urban Indian schools.)

You don't need someone who is particularly good in the subject to teach a class based on
recorded content in this subject.

Scaling is one of the key problems.  Running a pilot in one location is easy, but scaling
to multiple locations is the hard problem.

One needs strong champions -- not just the technology -- for all different locations.
Once this is given, all else follows.

The postal service is fairly reliable in India, but not so in other countries.

Teachers love to spend time to teach and help grander causes -- to contribute to the
education of kids -- but if commute is added, that would gradually reduce the number of
willing teachers, so the goal is to reduce those recurring distractions as much as possible,
while leaving the parts that the teachers are enjoying (i.e., the actual teaching).

In at least several developing countries, teaching is reduced to teachers writing
something on the board and having students copy that, or (a better situation is) teachers
having students memorize things.

For the stronger teacher personalities, it's important to present the idea as a resource
they may benefit from, rather than something they should absolutely follow (and mimic).
Often times, those teachers will study the content before class, and do much of the 
teaching -- based on the recorded content -- themselves.

Lack of good teachers is usually a problem in these developing communities, as is lack of
physical infrastructure (school rooms, tables, chairs, electricity, even boards to write 
on).

The better the school is, the higher the attendance.  The value that parents put on
education is directly correlated with high attendance.

If you put computers in the schools, attendance suddenly jumps.  Parents like sending
their kids to schools where there is a promise.