Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade • Hacker News Board

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#51

Post by pretendscholar » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #40

seattle_spring wrote: post #3

While I understand I only met a small fraction of the people trying to "disrupt" education, my experience with Ed-Tech was that the absolute wrong people were behind it. I interviewed at Coursera in 2012, and much of the interview focused on my academic background. Every round I'd sit down with an interviewer and they'd look at my transcript and say, "hmm what happened here!?" as they would point to my C+, the only g…

A C+ is a reasonable thing to ask about.

Maybe im just mediocre but it doesnt seem like a big deal. Sometimes you get a shit teacher and check out. The kind of ass kissing and begging that I saw among my peers that got all A's is real alarming

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#52

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:07 AM UTC

cgearhart wrote: post #37

fouc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion.. Ed-tech will never truly be successful if it is B2B and focused on teaching. The real problem to be solved is LEARNING. The goals of teaching and learning are not the same. Focusing on efficient learning means getting away from outdated methodology like tests, long-winded lectures, and more.

Learning isn’t really something that the provider can force on the student. Learning is like weight loss-there isn’t a trivial one-size-fits-all solution, and it requires a ton of work that no one else can do for you. Tests and lectures aren’t outdated, nor even particularly ineffective compared to anything else. I don’t know when it became popular to hate the way school is run, but it usually traces back to the mist…

Technology can help reduce the impact of those social problems....for example make college courses cheaper to deliver and so on.

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#53

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:07 AM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #35

crazygringo wrote: post #20

I spent years working in ed-tech, at more than one company on this list, and know people at many others. There were two overarching lessons I took from my experience. The first is that a successful educational product needs to deeply and intimately understand pedagogy and materials -- teaching and learning techniques and how they vary between students, and what kinds of materials are suitable -- deeply , I mean like…

> You have to hire educational+domain experts. ... who are willing to attack their own profession.

Easy to do you if you pay them or give them some sort of profit sharing arrangement.

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#54

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

impendia wrote: post #45

As a university professor, I'm struck at how few of these I've heard of -- and, of those which I've heard of, how little I care. I just don't feel like I have problems which I'm itching to have solved by technology. As an example of this, I've graded thousands of calculus exams in my career. It's time consuming, it's painful, and it's unpleasant. But it's also inevitable. Looking at my students' work, engaging with t…

Khan Academy already automated that. I know their math curriculum is pretty decent.

https://www.khanacademy.org/math/ap-calculus-ab

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#55

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

qntmfred wrote: post #4

gnicholas wrote: post #2

The author (Audrey Watters) is a truly great journalist, and her work provides a candid — and harsh, if needed — look at the education world. She's a must-read for anyone working in edtech. EDIT: I found her work on the incestuous world of edtech funding and media (e.g., EdSurge) to be especially illuminating. Because she is not an edtech founder, she was able to point out these relationships/issues without worrying…

I worked in edtech for many years and read her work regularly for most of those years. At a certain point though she started to feel more like a restaurant critic who took too much pleasure in roasting whoever the latest target was. Did she write a Best Ed-Tech Success Stories of the Decade? Cus that I'd be interested in.

She is going for point out the snake oil gimmicks that ed tech is known for these days. Most of it seems to be either composed of cash grabs for VC money or some sort of government grant money.

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#56

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #26

brians wrote: post #19

What’s worked in Ed-tech—ever? Bank street writer. It kept nascent computer classes from killing typing and made grading so much easier , saving the writing careers of many with poor handwriting. Logo: tens of millions of people have a lever to learn functional abstraction from “repeat 360 [fd 1 rt 1]” Project Athena. Frankly, I still want that ability to log in anywhere and have my setup ready to go. Project Andrew,…

Khan is pretty awesome. I'm using it "flipped" with my kids-- they watch a video and do a problem set, and then we talk about it. Mastery challenges figure out whether things are actually retained. They're motivated to earn energy points and avatars. (They should have more rewards, though, because they're running out of things to look forward to). My middle kid just did two years of math in 4-5 weeks. Now we're free…

I agree that Khan Academy is pretty decent but these days the project appears to have lost its direction. Most videos are low quality and could be improved. This non-profit has received millions in donations but has little to show for it. Most of the money appears to have been spent on programmers/web devs to simply organize Khan's already created videos. Some decent work went into the little math problem software as well.

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#57

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:15 AM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #30

unreal37 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Lynda.com was hugely successful. Or is that not considered Ed-Tech?

I suspect vocational training is considered old hat and boring. I get Lynda through my company and it can be pretty good. But it's not really that different from the sort of online training courses I've had access to in one form or another for ages.

Lynda became successful because companies gave it to their employees to boost up their skills...which I think might be an untapped potential market for ed tech. How about making very high quality courses that aren't sold to students. They're sold to companies which in turn make their employees take the courses and so on.

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#58

Post by newguy1234 » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:18 AM UTC

loteck wrote: post #15

Glad to see LA Unified's iPad disaster as #8 on the list. Tablets in general have been a... fiasco? disaster? Catastrophe? Especially for younger learners.

Tablet is useful but the problem is there is not enough ed tech software out there that really takes advantage of its potential. Best use I've seen is interactive kid's reading books. Teaches the kid to learn how to read and makes it fun.

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#59

Post by HarryHirsch » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:18 AM UTC

pg_bot wrote: post #12

Instead of buying more/better equipment, teachers, or technology why hasn't anyone tried to buy a better student? I'm fairly certain that if you paid elementary students cash for better grades you would see a huge jump in achievement for the average student. A small amount of money to us feels like a huge amount to a kid, and there are plenty of studies showing that rewards increase performance for basic and mechanic…

How is this going to work for something that isn't completely trivial, for example a mathematical proof? 5 kids do the proof, 15 kids copy, everyone gets a dollar. How can you do math in that environment?

Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade

#60

Post by lazyasciiart » Sat, Jan 04, 2020, 3:21 AM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #59

pg_bot wrote: post #12

Instead of buying more/better equipment, teachers, or technology why hasn't anyone tried to buy a better student? I'm fairly certain that if you paid elementary students cash for better grades you would see a huge jump in achievement for the average student. A small amount of money to us feels like a huge amount to a kid, and there are plenty of studies showing that rewards increase performance for basic and mechanic…

How is this going to work for something that isn't completely trivial, for example a mathematical proof? 5 kids do the proof, 15 kids copy, everyone gets a dollar. How can you do math in that environment?

How do you give grades in that environment?