Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#61

Post by ashark » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:34 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #17

ashark wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The piece isn't supposed to get to any point, really, because it's long-copy marketing. The whole idea is to keep you expecting a point for as long as possible, without delivering, then stop, hoping you decide to give the writer('s company) money.

Why is that supposed to increase the odds that I'll give the writer's company money? At least to me, it's more likely to give me a distaste of them as windbags who have nothing to offer. Do companies actually think marketing like this works? (Worse: Is it possible that they're right?)

I think the idea is that it keeps you engaged much longer than an ordinary ad would. Now, that just pisses me off when I figure out what's going on because you're deliberately wasting my time, but the claim is that it's measurably more effective than shorter, less-rambling copy. Used to be lots of posts about it on HN, few years back.

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#62

Post by throwaway729 » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:35 PM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #56

throwaway729 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you propose to measure outcomes of education without testing for ability to recall and utilize the knowledge and skills taught? I'm not. But you have the burden of evidence backward! If you want to use metrics like standardized tests in this manner, then it's your job to prove to me that standardized tests are reasonably good metrics. Why? Because forcing schools to optimize for counter-productive metrics is…

You claim >But you have the burden of evidence backward! Then claim >Eventually you hit a saturation point where the return on investment becomes too low to justify the additional expense. 20k aint that point. Do you have evidence of this claim? How do you know? Please show sources. >Do you have any evidence for this claim? Sounds extremely unlikely to me. You don't believe poorer kids have worse outcomes in life? ht…

> Do you have evidence of this claim? How do you know? Please show sources.

Of course! There are really two claims in my argument that I need to defend:

1. Pay is effecting the number of highly skilled people who enter the field. (Also that standardized testing is effecting the number of high skilled people who enter the field, but that was a bit of a tangential point I think?)

2. high skilled teachers provide better educational outcomes.

I THINK you're asking for evidence of the non-parenthetical portion of 1, so that's what I've provided. If I mis-interpreted your request for evidence, definitely let me know. I have cited good introductory essays for each of these three claims I've made.

So, here's evidence for the claim that pay is effected teacher quality.

This article from WaPo is a pretty balanced perspective (despite the clickbait title), citing some major names on both sides of the debate. It doesn't contain any of the data or analysis -- just competent summaries -- but it does link to the actual research if you're interested:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/08/...

From there you can follow bibliographies and get a pretty decent picture of the landscape.

One key take-away that resonates with my experience, both interacting with STEM teachers and tutoring college kids: "Generally speaking, the small fraction of the most cognitively skilled college students who elect to become teachers has declined for decades (Corcoran, Evans, and Schwab 2004)". Other research does the work of tying those choices to various things, most notably pay.

> You don't believe poorer kids have worse outcomes in life?

Of course I do.

What I don't believe is that local school districts are anywhere remotely close to taxing people into poverty.

Your claim was NOT that "poor students perform worse", which is what all your evidence backs. Your claim was that education budgets are such an enormous drain on household incomes that they make an appreciable difference in quality of life. I think that's probably bullshit.

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#63

Post by germinalphrase » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:36 PM UTC

rattray wrote: post #59

germinalphrase wrote: post #36

I'm a high school teacher. I've worked in rural/urban/suburban districts with wildly varied student demographics and school resources. The largest tech-related improvements to my teaching have not come from the availability of "edtech" - but from run of the mill productivity software (Email/Google Docs/etc) and students having reliable access to a computer/internet. I wasn't familiar with K2 Audiovisual before readin…

> Teachers know they should be personalizing their curriculum, assessment, and instructional performance for what each kid needs. They will typically even know how to accomplish it. I've been thinking about trying to build tools that let teachers create educational content (incl. formative assessment, etc) and share that content with each other. Does that sound like what you have in mind? If so, would love to chat.

Creating educational content is a part of it, but (generally speaking) I think we tend to fetishize curriculum content because it's tangible and relatable. We've all seen curriculum content by virtue of being a student, but that doesn't provide a great deal of insight into what else a teacher does in their professional practice.

Curriculum content (or Planning, more generally) is a part of it, but so is lesson performance and assessment. It's a closed loop that should be feeding back on itself. Right now, I'm interested in how teachers could move from a 'creation' to a 'curation' mode of working to give them greater freedom to focus on the high touch elements of the job.

Shoot me an email. I'd be happy to chat more.

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#64

Post by CaptSpify » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:39 PM UTC

Endama wrote: post #41

I work at an EdTech company right now and we've found huge success simply because we've tried to get out of the way and let teachers do what they do. Teachers today have a hard enough time without tech companies, policy makers, administrators, etc. barging into their classrooms and dictating the best way to instruct their kids. Like germinalphrase mentioned, I think the best place for tech in education is to "[offer]…

Doesn't that heavily depend on the teacher though? I don't disagree with you in principle, but couldn't the reason so many people try to dictate the best way to teach is because there are a lot of bad teachers?

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#65

Post by M_Grey » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:41 PM UTC

andybak wrote: post #58

redsummer wrote: post #49

Computer tech in education is a con. It is completely unnecessary. There's a reason Steve Jobs limited his kids access to technology: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... In fact, it has opposite effect to what is intended. It gives the child an avalanche of distraction, when what they need is simplicity. I would say the same about mobile phones.

Doesn't it rather depend on what you're trying to teach? To push an over simplistic alternative, maybe it hinders the syllabus but necessarily learning in the broadest sense. I'm not sure I've thought this through very deeply at this stage but I do have a deep distrust of formal education. I learned by playing with stuff until it broke and skim reading chunks of books I didn't have the patience to finish. Also - the…

A huge amount of early schooling is little more than basic socialization, literacy, numeracy, some vocabulary, and most of all daycare. Later it ostensibly becomes more focused on learning, but really it mostly just teaches people how to learn (in theory); that pretty much continues through high school, and sometimes much of university.

It's a pretty ancient edifice that exists in the current form due to societal, intellectual, bureaucratic, political and corporate inertia. All of that is backed by the terror parents feel that if they "get this wrong" the child will be unable to get ahead in the world (at best) or intellectually/socially ruined (at worst). This is further exacerbated by parents who, far from appreciating just how long it takes for real learning to begin (and how much of it is always self-guided), think the key to raising bright children is Mandarin in infancy.

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#66

Post by MengerSponge » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:43 PM UTC

redsummer wrote: post #49

Computer tech in education is a con. It is completely unnecessary. There's a reason Steve Jobs limited his kids access to technology: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... In fact, it has opposite effect to what is intended. It gives the child an avalanche of distraction, when what they need is simplicity. I would say the same about mobile phones.

You're more right than not. A minimal amount of technical computing skills are useful things to teach to everybody in grade school, but the value add of computers falls off pretty fast.

And the problems with computers in the classroom are not limited to grade school! Nobody should use a laptop in class. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-learning-secret...

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#67

Post by CaptSpify » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:47 PM UTC

mustacheemperor wrote: post #57

rattray wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but bad cookware isn't usually so bad it prevents you from cooking. Bad educational technology can get in the way of teaching and learning. Errors/bugs and confusing UX can cause lengthy delays in the classroom. Teachers can easily spend 15 minutes running around playing IT support when students are using a new technology – out of a 50 minute class which was scheduled in 5-minute increments. That doesn't mean…

My mother is coordinator of edtech at a small catholic middle and elementary school that fully invested in iPad education when it first released. It works as well as the commenters in this thread can tell you. The one thing you missed is that plenty of teachers won't spend the 15 minutes. The first time an edtech feature doesn't work in their classroom - usually because the teacher is using it completely incompetentl…

To be fair, most classroom software that I've seen is terrible. Couldn't her hesitation to learning tech be more because we've spent a long time giving them bad tech, so she stopped trying?

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#68

Post by germinalphrase » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:47 PM UTC

throwaway729 wrote: post #55

germinalphrase wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the general argument is that paying teachers a wage that is more competitive with alternatives will bring in higher quality teachers. I don't know if this is true - but that math major is probably a lot more likely to go work for an accounting firm at 60k a year rather than put up with the stress of teaching at 40k. Finally, I actually agree with you on the pay vs. proof of outcomes thing. The problem is that…

> I don't know if this is true - but that math major is probably a lot more likely to go work for an accounting firm at 60k a year rather than put up with the stress of teaching at 40k. And if you think that's bad try getting a Computer Science teacher to literally shave six figures off their salary! I hate to bad-mouth teachers, because there are so many people taking haircuts on their salary for altruistic reasons.…

I think we can acknowledge this without feeling like we're 'bad-mouthing' teachers at all. Depending on the grade level, content knowledge and expertise is only one part of a good teacher's skill set.

Salaries are unequal, so that naturally reduces the prestige of being a teacher. It's also a traditional "feminine" job with strong parenting/caregiving elements that further chips away at its status for some.

I don't judge anyone for seeing teaching as a "plan B"; however, the significant turn over/drop out rate of teachers would call into doubt whether it is as safe + easy a back up career as we culturally project.

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#69

Post by j2bax » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:55 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #40

monk_e_boy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. A school without basic technology like computers and tablets? Blimey, you want us to go back to slates and chalk? Most schools have 3D printers, VR headsets, iPads. We need to teach kids about technology they will be using in 10 - 15 years time when they hit the job market. We can't send kids out into a career without having used an iPad. Some kids don't have access to tech or the internet at home, now yo…

> We can't send kids out into a career without having used an iPad Other than 'app developer', what actual careers involve using specifically an iPad, let alone a generic tablet? > Most schools have 3D printers, VR headsets, iPads Tablets sure, not necessarily iPads. 3D printers and VR headsets?! I'm talking about primary school , kids aged 5-11 - it would be rare for even secondary schools in the UK to have 3D print…

I've seen many non-technical professionals using iPad's. In many cases they are replacing laptops in meetings. They are used in manufacturing environments. They are used in hospitals, airports etc etc. That said, my 80 year old grandmother learned to be pretty proficient on an iPad in a matter of a few hours, so I'm not really that concerned about people being able to pick up general tablet usage outside of school.

Re: Why Classroom Technology Is Costing More Than Its Worth (2016)

#70

Post by redsummer » Thu, Mar 30, 2017, 10:58 PM UTC

andybak wrote: post #58

redsummer wrote: post #49

Computer tech in education is a con. It is completely unnecessary. There's a reason Steve Jobs limited his kids access to technology: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new... In fact, it has opposite effect to what is intended. It gives the child an avalanche of distraction, when what they need is simplicity. I would say the same about mobile phones.

Doesn't it rather depend on what you're trying to teach? To push an over simplistic alternative, maybe it hinders the syllabus but necessarily learning in the broadest sense. I'm not sure I've thought this through very deeply at this stage but I do have a deep distrust of formal education. I learned by playing with stuff until it broke and skim reading chunks of books I didn't have the patience to finish. Also - the…

It is far worse than other nonsense. Can you think of one advantage of computer technology in the classroom? Tech company PR is really good, but edu tech is really just part of the corporate takeover of education that's happened over the last few decades.

Additionally, almost all technology will be superseded by AI in the future, which means that training young kids in technology is literally preparing them for unemployment. At best, kids trained in tech will be used as flesh-and-blood beta versions of future AIs. I would go as far to say that exposing kids unnecessarily to technology is a form of child abuse. A very rounded education is preferable to being unemployed and tech-literate, bitter at the AI that is doing the job that you trained for.