Comment Self-organising learning environments (Score 1) 479
Sugata Mitra has been doing practical research for 10 years that involves children learning in groups of 4 or 5 through being asked a big question such as "can trees think?", "how does a GPS work exactly", etc, then being given time with a shared computer and broadband connection to answer the question, before having to explain it to a teacher. This is called a self-organising learning environment or SOLE, and appears to work for almost any subject for children up to age 10 or so.
He started with the well-known "Hole in the Wall" experiment where he placed a computer in the wall of a building on the street, and watched what happened - the children taught themselves English as well as how to use the computer. Later experiments involved leaving a PC with English biotechnology materials in a remote village with kids who only spoke Tamil, and telling them to get on with it. Remarkably, they actually learnt a significant amount of biotech.
See http://educationalurbanism.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/dr-sugata-mitra-from-the-hole-in-the-wall-to-sole-self-organized-learning-environment/ - his ideas on "the granny cloud" show how this could scale enormously using Skype etc to have older mentors encourage the children, and perhaps ask or help in creating the big questions that will drive the childrens' learning.
I really hope he gets a chunk of the prize - he is a true innovator and his technique can be applied both inside and outside schools, from developing to developed world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugata_Mitra has references - see his TED talk, he's a very engaging speaker.