Hope-in-the-Wall? A digital promise for free learning

Hole-in-the-Wall as a concept has attracted worldwide attention. It involves providing unconditional access to computer-equipped kiosks in playgrounds and out-of-school settings, children taking ownership of their learning and learning driven by the children’s natural curiosity. It is posited that this approach, which is being used in India, Cambodia and several countries in Africa, can pave the way for a new education paradigm and be the key to providing literacy and basic education and bridging the digital divide in remote and disadvantaged regions. This paper seeks to establish why two such open access, self-directed and collaborative learning systems failed to take root in the Central Himalaya communities of Almora and Hawalbagh. The purpose of this study is not to deny the achievements and potential of such an approach in other settings, but to examine the tenets and sustainability of such initiatives. It is argued that there is a need to distinguish between Hole-in-the-Wall as an idea and as an institution and to reflect on the key suppositions on how unsupervised access, informal, public, self-guided and collaborative work can help in children’s learning. Introduction The goal of achieving educational equity in societies mired by historical or contemporary disadvantage and injustice has great appeal. However, the pursuit of this ideal can vary in its outcomes from inspirational to disillusioning. Rural India has been plagued with chronic failure in delivering quality education to its vast young populace. There are frequently documented cases of teacher absenteeism, the dearth of textbooks and other teaching and learning materials, poor facilities and the use of rote learning methods, all of which deprive children of opportunities for the British Journal of Educational Technology (2010) doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01078.x © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. kinds of teaching and learning they need (Drèze & Sen, 2002). Rather than waiting for governmental and institutional change and resolve, some agencies have embarked to provide new, radically different learning environments. One such initiative is Hole-inthe-Wall. Hole-in-the-Wall started with a simple but radical idea. A computer was embedded in a wall of a slum area in Kalkaji, New Delhi, to see what use the local children would make of this without instruction or guidance. A touchpad was built into the wall, a Windows NT operating system installed on the PC and a video camera placed on a nearby tree to record the children’s activity. The children that came to explore the computer had little formal education. Fewer still had ever been exposed to a computer or material in English. And yet within eight months, they had learned all the mouse operations and could open and close programmes, surf the Net and download games, music and video. When asked how they did this, they said they had taught themselves. The pioneer behind this project (Mitra, 2004) defined this new mode of learning as ‘minimally invasive education’ (MIE), claiming that it ‘uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation to induce learning in groups of children, with minimal, or no, intervention by a teacher’ (Mitra, Dangwal, Chatterjee & Jha, 2005, p. 2). Hole-in-the-Wall Education Lit. (HiWEL), a joint venture between NIIT Ltd., and the International Finance Corporation, has received the World Information Technology and Services Alliance ‘Digital Opportunity Award’ for its path-breaking work in informal e-learning. It has triggered a romance that tells of learning free from the chronic obstacles of formal schooling and children liberated through self-learning. Its many national and international applications have attracted funding, media coverage and publications, spawning ingenious means and ways of equipping villages with these playground-located computer kiosks. Stories have been told of children inventing their own vocabulary to describe computer symbols—for example, calling the desktop hourglass countdown timer damru (Shiva’s drum); of children formerly denied access to schooling or relegated to the background in schooling as now being placed at the centre of the learning enterprise; of villagers likening the Internet to a well from which the children could draw up knowledge and broaden their horizons (Judge, 2000). Also captured in this momentum are children teaching themselves and others to paint, play games and music and check out their horoscopes through such kiosks—and discovering that learning could be fun. Even the novel ‘Q & A’ on which the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ movie was based was inspired by the HiWEL initiative. The author, Vikas Swarup, says ‘My book is about hope, optimism and triumph of the human spirit. I was inspired by the Hole-in-the-Wall project. That got me fascinated and I realized that there’s an innate ability in everyone to do something extraordinary, provided they are given an opportunity’ (Economic Times, 2009). Nicholas Negroponte of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) likened the Holein-the-Wall kiosks to ‘shared blackboards’ that children in underprivileged communities could collectively own and access to explore, learn, collaborate, brainstorm, come 2 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. up with exciting ideas and express themselves. More kiosks were located and trialled in out-of-the-way, out-of-the-mind locations in India and Cambodia and used in a Commonwealth Connects project in Uganda. The Hole-in-the-Wall experiments continued between 1999 and 2004. Then in 2004, Hole in the Wall Education Limited or HiWEL (http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/) was formed, a joint venture between NIIT Limited and the International Finance Corporation. HiWEL strives to provide digital access through computer-equipped learning kiosks in school playgrounds and out-of-school settings in the underlying belief that children can take ownership of their learning, and that learning can be driven by their natural curiosity. It is posited that this can pave the way for a new education paradigm and be the key to providing literacy and basic education and bridging the digital divide in remote and disadvantaged regions. It is also suggested that the child can both be the learner and the teacher, collaborators in their own learning. Not surprisingly, this work has received international recognition and awards. While the HiWEL initiative is commendable, it raises some challenging questions. Is collaborative learning a natural or a taught process? Is informal and public learning inherently more equitable and democratic? What kinds and depths of learning are achievable? What, if any, is the role of the teacher and/or mediators in this process? What are the benchmarks for success and failure, and how do these differ from those in conventional learning? And is this approach sustainable? The author’s chance encounter with two failed Hole-in-the-Wall schemes in Almora, a district in the Kumaun region of the Central Himalayas, provided an opportunity to consider these questions in a specific socio-geographic context. She was engaged in an 8-month qualitative ethnographic study of computer usage in the region when she chanced upon all that remained of this initiative and had the opportunity to draw on people’s recollections of it. Given HiWEL’s popularity among development practitioners, it was surprising to discover that despite significant investment of time, resources and effort, this particular project had ground to a halt and seemingly, had barely touched the community. Only 2 years after the project’s implementation, there was low community memory of it. HiWEL’s promising results elsewhere continue to give it legitimacy in combating educational disadvantage. However, it is worth bearing in mind that there is little documented evidence on HiWEL other than that originating from the HiWEL researchers themselves. The absence of empirical research independent of its funding source is sadly not an anomaly in the development field (Davidoff et al., 2001; Samoff, 1992). Also tragically, there are all too many examples of independent evaluations of media applications in education in developing countries recording the demise of these initiatives once funding is withdrawn. This observation does not warrant out-of-hand dismissals of the project’s worth and potential, but the failure of this particular project in Almora strengthens the case for posing the questions above. Free learing 3 © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. The ethnographer as archaeologist In a narrow laneway off the main street of Almora township, just past the typical motley of tea stalls, fruit vendors and displays of Kumauni woollens, there stands a four-walled cemented structure in which there are three gaping holes (Figure 1). It might easily be mistaken for one of the many local construction projects that have run out of money and been abandoned. But for the researcher, the ethnographer becomes the archaeologist, this relic of a neglected Hole-in-the-Wall computer-based initiative called out for investigation. A similar but more recent project demise was also found to have occurred at the nearby village of Hawalbagh, where again the kiosk stood in ruins (Figure 2). Both sets of kiosks were on the compounds of the local high schools. The one in Almora was on the pathway leading up to the boy’s school, while the one in Hawalbagh was in the Figure 1: HiWEL Learning Station: Almora Town Figure 2: HiWEL Learning Station: Hawalbagh Village 4 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. co-educational school’s playground. These were all that remained of this particular Hole-in-the-Wall experiment. So what had gone wrong? Digging up the past Discussions with members of the local community revealed the fate of these two initiatives. The Almora kiosk, inaugurated in October 2002, had met an untimely end within a few months of its opening due to vandalism. One HiWEL staff member subsequently described it as the only learning station ever to be closed even before a trial was over. The Hawalbagh kiosk, launched at the same time, fared somewhat better, surviving until it became inactive in 2007. A village ‘caretaker’ had been appointed to look after the equipment while the kiosk lay dormant, but it appeared that the New Delhibased HiWEL team was unaware of the reasons for the Hawalbagh standstill and was awaiting enlightenment on this matter. The researcher volunteered to assist HiWEL by enquiring into the status of its kiosks and was given the necessary contact details. In Almora township, few of the people, including the students, had any recollection of the project. Walking down the winding path leading up to the school one afternoon, the researcher came across a group of teachers sitting around in the playground reading newspapers and chatting. It was exam time and they had come out for a break. One of the senior teachers took the lead in answering the questions on what went wrong with the kiosk: It was a good idea but ... I’ll tell you, they spend so much money on computers and such little on taking care of it. They gave the keys to the chaukidar [watchman] and told him to clean it and take care of it. Now you tell me why should he take care of it? He doesn’t get paid for it at all. He sleeps here below and works at the school so why should he go up and stay up just for this? Another teacher interjected: The problem is that there is no instruction given. It’s okay if people are computer literate but when most people here are computer illiterate they need guidance and instruction. In our school we have a full lab where we instruct children. This kiosk thing went on only for a month or two and then it stopped but even though it stopped working we kept getting the bills for months and then only recently they took the computers away and moved it to Hawalbagh for something. Almora has a population of around 30 000 and is a centre for adventure tourism. Hawalbagh is a small village with a population of about 600. There is rampant unemployment here because there is little industry. The majority of the people depend upon subsistence farming. A local agricultural research centre offers employment to a third of Hawalbagh’s population, but only on an intermittent basis. As in all government schools in these regions, Kumauni is spoken widely but Hindi is the medium of instruction, and English is taught from the 6th grade onwards. There is only one primary school, one government high school and one private school in the area. More than half of the students at the government co-educational high school where the remains of the HiWEL Learning Station stood came from the neighbouring villages. Talking to them revealed few insights. They were either unaware of the kiosk or acknowledged its Free learing 5 © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. existence with a shrug of the shoulders, as if accepting its fate as part of the general state of things in the village. Some commented that they had ‘just played around’ with the computers. The teachers also revealed a general lack of curiosity over, or concern for, the fate of the kiosk. They observed that the computers had been in use for some time, but then usage stopped. They recalled a few boys using these kiosks, but ‘usually for things like games, that’s all.’ The caretaker on the other hand, a young man in his 20s, was more informative. He had been employed by HiWEL but not paid to support or maintain the equipment and had not heard from the organisation in months. He said: The students mainly came from the local high school and sometimes nearby colleges. At that time, it was going well. For some four to five years students were using it because their colleges did not have any computers and it was free. They [HiWEL] put a full time instructor there at the site to guide students. They [students] did a lot on their own together but once in a while they would ask the instructor for help. But when the electricity bill did not get paid for a while, the authorities cut the power off. I told them [HiWEL] to pay, but they did not get back to me. So I just put the computers in a safe room and locked it for now. They are still there. Sharing this feedback with people at HiWEL yielded the responses that there was need to ‘empower the community’ to take care of the Learning Station and that there had been an expectation that the sarpanch (village head) would take care of it, but he had failed to do this. Three hundred rupees (about eight US dollars) per month was all that was needed to sustain this Learning Station. The providers evidently saw their role as ‘handholding’ for the first 3 years, beyond which time they expected the community to take over the baton. It is of course all too easy to become caught up in the usual development politics of community participation and corporate responsibility and cause and effect. However, this does not help in establishing the reasons for the goals not being realised, a dream turning sour. Things should have gone right; there should have been a happy ending. After all, who would not wish to see children taking over the driving seat in their own learning and having an opportunity for more extended and enhanced learning? To gain insights into what had occurred, the researcher then turned her attention to the pillars of HiWEL—free and open informal public learning, unsupervised access, collaborative peer learning and self-guided learning—and delved into the relationships of informal and formal education, perceptions of computers, and social processes of inand out-of-school learning in such applications. School as you go The concept of free learning is not simply concerned with liberation from long-standing inequitable access to education. It entails the transformative capacity of learning that is more dialogic and less didactic (Freire, 1998). It disregards hierarchies and formal structures and promotes the alluring proposition that learning can take place anywhere and with anyone. It does not take much stretch of the imagination to draw linkages between such advocacies and the HiWEL experiment in trying to provide education without dependency upon the teacher and the school. 6 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. The classroom can be seen as a suffocating as well as a nurturing environment. Through the school, the state attempts to achieve consensus on the voice of wisdom and learning deemed necessary for the socialisation of a new generation. A school is therefore as much a conceptual as a concrete creation. The organisation of learning through such a single agency is seen as a political act. Foucault’s ‘school as prison’ analogy has become a well known emblem of the forces at play in creating learning spaces to assemble and shape human thought and action (Foucault, 1977). The four walls promise to close in at any time and this promise of fear, it is supposed, can drive schooling far more powerfully than any alternative vision. Thereby, school is perceived to be as much an instrument of political will as an embodiment of a vision of democracy. So it is not surprising that HiWEL’s free and open learning should excite many. It holds promise of a ‘minimal interventionist’ grassroots approach to education with maximum benefit. Learning escapes the confines of the school walls, is available anywhere anytime, and overcomes the years of injustice in educational access in countries such as India where the provisions for and expectations of so many children are low (Arora, 2006). In Almora itself, stories abound of teachers handing over the keys to the classroom to senior students while they stay at home or undertake other work. Of course, we are attracted to the promise that children can learn and do learn with no or little supervision using computers in environments free from the chronic barriers to achieving schooling in disadvantaged areas. But in the case of Almora and Hawalbagh, what we see is the idea of free learning going into free fall. In other words, the act of learning without conventional schooling constraints is contingent on the support of institutional, social and other factors, making it less ‘free’ in that sense. Would the fate of the kiosks have been different if there had been more supervision? And would this have meant less or more freedom in learning? The vandalism of the kiosk at Almora that has also occurred in other settings as Mitra (2006) himself admits and the neglect of the Hawalbagh facility suggest that too much freedom may be a bad thing. This is why HiWEL, while aiming for independence from the contemporary drawbacks of rural schools, is still compelled to choose sites on the school compounds, hereby associating the free offer with schooling, classes and teachers. Let us be clear about this. HiWEL does not aim to dismiss or disregard schooling; it seeks to provide an alternative space for learning in places where school systems have failed to provide for children. So there are two aspects to being ‘free’ in learning: free from the dearth of educational support due to teacher absenteeism by giving children opportunities to learn with the computer kiosks and free from ‘bad’ teaching by providing spaces for collaborative, self-organised and peer teaching and learning—making the child the agent in his/her learning process. In this formula, however, lies a fundamental paradox. HiWEL exists because there are few teachers in rural areas to guide students. HiWEL also exists because they offer an innovative Freirean pedagogy that opposes the rote linear learning that often takes place within rural schools. So at once, it is supportFree learing 7 © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. ive of existing schooling practices and yet, against the way they currently stand, providing seemingly better pedagogic strategies to learning. So why would this duality be a problem? The conundrum HiWEL has to face is that it has to strategically engage with schools to justify its presence due to the absence of instruction, and yet has to strategically disengage in the presence of certain types of instruction. So for HiWEL to sustain itself, it has to involve the school. However, if it involves the school to a point of carrying over certain rote and linear schooling practices, it is in danger of becoming nothing but an extension of that school. This is seen, for instance, where HiWEL benchmarks its achievements in computer literacy, English language and other academic areas against conventional schools (Inamdar & Kulkarni, 2007). Thus, while pedagogical expectations can be perceived here as being ‘invasive’ on child-centred growth, HiWEL strives to match and even exceed such curricular goals. There is also an underlying notion that the self-organising learning orchestrated by children is inherently better, more liberating and more egalitarian than in formal schooling. So this approach could imply that teachers should stay away to encourage children towards free learning. In fact, HiWEL as an experiment has matured considerably in the last few years. It has moved from primarily proving that children can learn by themselves through computers to the how and what of learning. They have also started to focus more on the building of ties with the school, particularly in regard to using the teachers or others in the local communities as mediators in learning. While this can be a promising move for sustainability through the integration of outside interventions, the question here is how can HiWEL control the kinds of instruction that occurs if the teacher becomes involved? What happens to knowledge discovery and knowledge creation if the instruction by the rural teacher is embedded in rote learning—what would this do to the HiWEL kiosk learning spaces and its specific novel pedagogic activities? What trade-off would HiWEL be willing to make to achieve sustainability—and would this in the end, be self-defeatist? And with computer laboratories springing up across schools in rural India as part of the new digital divide investment policy by the State (Garai & Shadrach, 2006), how will HiWEL maintain its distinctive character? This would surely require HiWEL to move beyond the uses of computers as tools of liberation and learning for children and take into account their more diverse applications. With its hard-earned Silicon Valley status, India now regards the computer as a symbol of nationhood; the extent to which institutions are willing to let go or participate in letting go of such ‘instruments’ of power and persuasion may be worthy of investigation. Private distance from public education If HiWEL involves teachers in the usage of the kiosks, it might run the danger of defeating the purposes of the project. Such is the teaching tradition in these schools that there is a high likelihood that the teachers would instruct, reprimand, correct, direct and tame the spirit of the child—doing what they are trained and required to do, 8 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. convert the children into pupils, disciples of learning. There might well be less spontaneous self-directed or group learning. Playing games and music downloads may be supplanted by Excel charts and PowerPoint. The limited access to the few computers in the schools could further impose constraints on learning and the timetable schedules and curriculum demands would dictate the nature and pace of learning at these kiosks. The use of the term ‘minimally invasive education’ may not help HiWEL’s case either since this implies that teachers are typically ‘invasive’. Indeed, this may be why the concept of MIE did not appeal to many of the teachers in these two villages. It is important to remember that the issues of participation in the learning activities in the playground kiosks are not simply in the hands of HiWEL as the providers, but the local principals and teachers. Which brings us to the issue of whether the teachers want to become involved in such educational initiatives in the first place. Schools regard themselves as the centres of the educational enterprise and innovative projects such as HiWEL as being at the periphery. So distancing itself from classrooms, it may expose itself to resistance from the teachers. Of course, change is often needed in these schools and they are unlikely to change by themselves. External agents such as HiWEL with their new ideas of Internet-based learning can be important catalysts for educational change. Indeed, this is apparent in the recent changes of approach that involve striving to meet similar desirable outcomes to those of formal school systems. But then, as HiWEL’s goals align more with those of the state, is there a danger that it becomes too institutionalised and that its experimental approach becomes compromised? In attempting educational change and innovation in schools, it is not just the lack of incentives to participate in such learning that inhibits schools but a genuine concern that moving away from the formal curriculum can lead to the ‘wrong’ kinds of knowledge and teaching (‘mis-education’). Teachers are fearful of being held responsible for this, and for not preparing their children for the set tests and exams for which they are held accountable. HiWEL has for the most part focused on processes of learning, with little emphasis on content, an arena that is equally if not more contested when it comes to schooling, particularly in its more conventional forms. These observations lead to the conclusion that indifference of the teachers in Almora and Hawalbagh may not have altogether been due to disinterest. The teachers may care deeply for their pupils and what they see as constituting teaching and learning. But they may have viewed HiWEL’s interventions as possible violations of their turf. To return to the point made earlier regarding computers, studies show that in many different cultures, children essentially use computers more for social and recreational purposes than formal learning (e.g. Arora, Forthcoming; Bremer, 2005; Livingstone, 2003). There may even be problems with suggestions of ‘learning as fun’ using computers. In India, the computer has supplanted the traditional images of the nation—the malnourished child, the sacred cow, the slow moving elephant trying to outrun the Free learing 9 © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. Asian tiger and so on. The state and the politics of public education endorse the idea that the computer blazes the pathway for the new generation—the ‘netizens’—gearing themselves up not now just to work in the back-offices of multinational corporations but at the forefront of innovation. So what are the cultural implications of associating such a symbol with ‘fun?’ and the casual placement of this artefact without an overt agenda outside the schools? Playground kiosk democracy Mitra & Rana (2001) opine that accidental or incidental discoveries if repeated within a collective environment leads to learning. In this regard, the Hole-in-the-Wall approach might be seen as following a constructivist Vygotsky (1978) approach to learning. It espouses peer-collaborative learning as the root to active construction and invention of ideas. Mitra and Rana (2002, p. 222) suggest that ‘the learners determine their own learning outcomes’, pointing to the spontaneous emerging collectives of children as they are drawn to the kiosks—touching, feeling, fiddling with the computer and surfing the Internet. So it might be said that placing kiosks in playgrounds is not just a means of attracting children, but is symbolic. It makes the statement that learning with computers in this way is free learning, learning is play, and play is possible by all children, and accessible to all in such public environments. HiWEL is not alone in celebrating collaboration and play in learning. Much research has gone into demonstrating that self-structure and self-motivation for learning is embedded within play (Zimmerman, 2008; Sutton-Smith, 1997). Rather than learning individually, HiWEL sees ‘collective learning efforts’ as more natural and rational for children as they play together with the computer and share ideas and strategies for learning. The children ‘form their own social networks at these learning stations, which facilitate information to percolate from the perceived leader(s) to various learners’ (Dangwal, Jha & Kapur, 2006, p. 296). The assumption is that children will organise themselves into leaders, connectors and novices, create linkages and share their learning. HiWEL goes so far as to state that this democratic learning circumvents barriers such as age, caste and class and that ‘there is also no gender restriction as there may be in certain social situations’ (Mitra, 2005, p. 80). However, this does not take into account the dynamic asymmetries in people’s behaviour (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Evidence from HiWEL’s own experiments suggest that there are often fewer girls than boys accessing these kiosks (Mitra, 2003). The researcher’s own 6-month experience with Hewlett Packard-supported community computer kiosks in rural Andhra Pradesh (Figure 3) established that these were primarily used by boys flocking to play games (Arora, 2005). These kiosks quickly gained the reputation as ‘play stations’ in the locality, creating a further disconnect from schools. Often, the same group of boys dominated these spaces. The point here is to not dwell on sex inequality in computer usage or gender dynamics with technology (see, e.g. Solomon, Allen & Resta, 2003), but to suggest that collaborative learning is not necessarily democratic or egalitarian, especially amongst children. In fact, it may be shown that peer collaboration does not necessarily improve learning and can have a detrimental 10 British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. effect on educational processes and outcomes (O’Donnell & King, 1999; Tudge & Winterhoff, 2006). Spaces such as playgrounds certainly cannot be disassociated from social practice so HiWEL’s placing of computers in playgrounds may not only breed collaboration but competition and discrimination. Placing the kiosks in school playgrounds may be seen as avoiding or challenging existing structures, expectations and patterns of behaviour. The intention is that they should be close to, but not part of, the formal education settings. But schools, like temples, are loud proclaimers of their beliefs, and even their compounds reflect these. Playgrounds are not neutral, value-free spaces. Their provision came into being at the turn of the 19–20th century and stemmed from the notion of controlling children by providing a safety valve for their ‘idleness’ (Chudacoff, 2007). In the USA, these playgrounds were designed to serve immigrant and working-class boys who would otherwise be lured to far less ‘moral’ spaces such as pool halls and penny arcades. Boys and girls were segregated and closely supervised and the intent was to instil virtue through play and to extend the arm of morality by gifting freedom with control. In other words, playgrounds were a manifestation of the benign dictatorship of adults over children. Today’s playgrounds, while evoking a sense of free movement for children, are still often spaces of acculturation and socialisation. They are one of the few spaces where children can interact with their peers on their own terms with minimal adult supervision, freely exercising their choice to discriminate, to decide who to talk to, when and for what purposes (Hart, 1993; Pellegrini, 1998). But such choices can come with unwanted behaviours—cruelty, distancing and bullying, often as a direct consequence of competition in schools. Hence, they can be places for discriminative learning, where play becomes privileged through processes of elimination and control. Much is written Figure 3: Boys at hp i-community kiosk, Kuppam Town Free learing 11 © 2010 The Author. Journal compilation © 2010 Becta. about the disadvantages of the rigidity and uniformity of the traditional classroom, but it may also offer a more benign, neutral and well-structured environment for equitable learning. Conclusion HiWEL as an experiment is an important initiative. It has evidenced the ingenuity of children and their capacity for self-learning through play and experimentation, something that is all-too often lost in much traditional schooling in India. It has shown that it has the potential to provide educational opportunities for those denied formal schooling, enhance and extend formal schooling, and remind schools of their purpose and duty to the community. It has even shown that children can be the ‘pundits’ of the new digital age. However, HiWEL’s connotation as an ‘experiment’ denotes its temporary status. And now, while advocating and demonstrating a means of free learning, HiWEL is also becoming more institutionalised, more structured in its design and operations, and more reliant upon the use of mediators to assist the children in their learning. The admission of more formal means of teaching and learning into its informal spaces and processes is needed for the purposes of funding, efficacy and social acceptance. This comes with some significant challenges of negotiating the relationships with the school, the teacher as a mediator, and the kinds of content, instruction and curriculum that it can allow to seep into these relatively free spaces without compromising on the underlying tenets of innovative pedagogy. Also, just as in society writ large, learning involves competition as well as collaboration. Autonomous learning with computers without some monitoring and mediators may continue to face resistance both on the grounds of ensuring educational order and that all children have equal access and opportunity for computer access and learning. However, the intervention of mediators within such free spaces of learning can serve as a double-edged sword. Mediators require compelling incentives to intervene, and come with a range of perspectives on instruction and content. Hence, for HiWEL to sustain their vision, they would have to ‘school’ such mediators to their ways of thinking. This could possibly position HiWEL against that of State schooling, making this a game of trade-offs.