Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, England, and a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor Mitra works in the areas of cognitive science, information science and educational technology, and he has a keen interest in engineering and software development. This is an excerpt from his new e-book, Beyond the Hole in the Wall: Discover the Power of Self-Organized Learning.

In early 1999, some colleagues and I sunk a computer into the opening of a wall near our office in Kalkaji, New Delhi. The area was located in an expansive slum, with desperately poor people struggling to survive. The screen was visible from the street, and the PC was available to anyone who passed by. The computer had online access and a number of programs that could be used, but no instructions were given for its use.

Dr. Danielle Moss Lee (@HEAFNYC on Twitter) is President and CEO at Harlem Educational Activities Fund (HEAF). With a background in administration and non-profits, she's passionate about educational equity, college access, curriculum and youth development. Read her blog at http://www.heaf.org/blog/.

Let me start out by assuring readers that I'm not suggesting it takes a magical coat of arms to survive life on a predominantly white campus if you're a student of color. Over the decades, tens of thousands of students of color have been effectively and happily educated on predominantly white college campuses across this wonderful country of ours, and most of those students look back fondly on their college experiences.

Andrew Marcinek is an instructional technologist at Burlington High School in Burlington, MA. He is also a regular blogger at Edutopia.org. Follow him on Twitter @andycinek.

Todd Blake Finley, PhD (@finleyt on Twitter) is an Associate Professor of English Education at East Carolina University in C&I. He has taught elementary and 8-12th grade English and co-developed the Tar River Writing Project. Dr. Finley teaches, researches, works with schools and publishes in the field of composition, curriculum, instruction, technology, and collaboration. His home page is www.EEprof.com.

Start with Courage

In 1969, RAND political analyst Daniel Ellsberg risked espionage charges by photocopying secret Pentagon Papers that documented how U.S. presidents lied to the American public about military escalation plans in Vietnam and lied about its chances of success.

Lisa M. Dabbs M.Ed. (@teachingwthsoul on Twitter) is the facilitator of Edutopia's New Teacher Connections group. She is also the founder of the weekly #ntchat for new teachers on Twitter, and blogs about supporting new teachers at Teaching With Soul.

Welcome to week three of Edutopia's New Teacher Academy! I'm excited to be here with you sharing my passion to support and mentor new teachers. I hope that you will come back each week and join us as we look at five key topics and provide resources for New Teachers in five key areas.