It’s truly fascinating how people quickly join echo chambers and often neglect thinking critically about the opinions they propagate. In computer programming, as an example, 1970s and 80s research points to many problems and dangers of wishful thinking guiding the inclusion of programming on early stages of the school curriculum. To this day, many efforts bypass these alerts and focus on engagement rather than learning or facilitating learning - while claiming benefits in learning
Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
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Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#102This article does point out a lot of things that have failed this decade - all fair points. But in focusing on failures it fails to capture that casual education (not formal, school education) has fundamentally shifted this decade.
Today, I can learn almost anything I want for free on the internet.
- I can get a world class mathematical education from 3Blue1Brown (seriously this guy's videos are just out of this world good).
- I can get incredible guitar lessons on any song I want from youtube (I've taught myself guitar this year through it!).
- I can find scores of language education podcasts to help me learn Spanish (I use coffee break spanish).
- I can get world class SAT prep from Khan Academy (for free!).
- I can get awesome yoga classes online for free (did this also this year).
Seriously the wealth and quality of information available to us today is insane - it's the Library of Alexandria a search bar away.
As someone who enjoys learning, there's no way I would ever go back 10 years in time.
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#103While 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…
Why for goodness sakes would a job interview need your college transcripts?
To satisfy an interviewer who thinks it's important because it's what they base their own sense of importance on. Or, because you took a specific course(s) relevant to the task you're being hired for and don't have industry experience in that material.
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
The kind of ass kissing and begging that I saw among my peers that got all A's is real alarming
I see the same from some new graduates, begging their managers to sign off on something, they don’t seem to understand the difference between an academic grade and work being of a standard to show a customer.
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#105This article does point out a lot of things that have failed this decade - all fair points. But in focusing on failures it fails to capture that casual education (not formal, school education) has fundamentally shifted this decade. Today, I can learn almost anything I want for free on the internet. - I can get a world class mathematical education from 3Blue1Brown (seriously this guy's videos are just out of this worl…
How do you decide which of the free resources are authorative? Maybe you learn some bad habits from that popular youtube video?
* Case in point there is a popular ML guy on youtube who is also considered a bit of a hack.
* When Khan was starting out some of his original videos were also critiqued when they were out of his area of expertise.
* My friend learned Spanish from a teacher from Basque area. He has an intriguing accent now...
* There are zillion Python videos on Youtube and many are not quite good.
The problem was pointed out in 1970 Future Shock by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler .
It is much easier to spend time choosing an authoritative educational institution(online or offline) than individually choosing each teacher.
You let the school do the curating for you.
There will be bad teachers even at good schools but your meta cognitive load is lessened.
PS I am a bit biased since I teach at various non-profit and profit institutions (I also stream on youtube but privately)
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#106animations and lessons about “growth mindsets,” “grit,” and “mindfulness.” Dear God. We have growth mindset and grit here at this regional institution. There are students who take General Chemistry 1 (read: 10-th grade chemistry) three times with three different instructors, everyone with a different teaching philosophy, and they still don't give up. Wow. That's some grit there. This time they failed, but they can al…
“Grit” as its own solution strategy / problem classification in the context you describe seems masochism-adjacent.
Current paradigm for students: joy of discovery < joy of submission.
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#107I 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…
I'd be interested in hearing of examples of things you find good. (In contrast to the article above this thread, which lists lots of things that are bad.)
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#108I spent several years working on one of the top-10 issues in that list. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say: the responsible party deserved every bit of criticism that came it’s way.
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where are the physical classrooms?
Eduction without physical classrooms aka correspondence education is a really old idea. Using the internet to host videos, is a take on using TV to broadcast videos to remote area, which is a take on doing the same with radio. And as the name suggests before this people would get degrees via mail with known examples going back to 1728. Though coupling this with formal degrees only dates back to the 1840s. https://en.…
Taking something that exists, and making it hugely popular or more accessible (think ride sharing or house sharing ala AirBnb) can be disruptive. I'm not talking about who invented it. I'm talking about how disruptive it is. Seems like others disagree which is fine, but for me personally, online education has been a game changer that I've greatly benefitted from.
Re: Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eduction without physical classrooms aka correspondence education is a really old idea. Using the internet to host videos, is a take on using TV to broadcast videos to remote area, which is a take on doing the same with radio. And as the name suggests before this people would get degrees via mail with known examples going back to 1728. Though coupling this with formal degrees only dates back to the 1840s. https://en.…
Taking something that exists, and making it hugely popular or more accessible (think ride sharing or house sharing ala AirBnb) can be disruptive. I'm not talking about who invented it. I'm talking about how disruptive it is. Seems like others disagree which is fine, but for me personally, online education has been a game changer that I've greatly benefitted from.
More accessible seems seems like an good argument, but I disagree that more popular is a disruption as the option already existed.
Anyway, I was looking to get an online masters in 2000 and there where several to choose from. On the other hand Coursera was founded in 2012 so I fail to see the disruption. Better marketing?