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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

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Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#111

Post by boomchinolo78 »

donatj wrote: post #10

I work in EdTech, I have for a very long time now, and the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level. The promise of EdTech was that kids could learn where they are. A kid who's behind can actually continue to learn rather than being left behind. A kid who's ahead can be nurtured. We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaint…

>straight up threats because kids would learn things "they shouldn't be"

What do you think is behind the threats? Do the teachers fear being replaced or is it coming from a different set of people?

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#112

Post by mettamage »

donatj wrote: post #10

I work in EdTech, I have for a very long time now, and the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level. The promise of EdTech was that kids could learn where they are. A kid who's behind can actually continue to learn rather than being left behind. A kid who's ahead can be nurtured. We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaint…

I skipped out complete uni classes and followed an analogue online. Maurice Herlihy had its concurrency and multithreading classes online for a while. I passed my c&m course with it, we also used his book

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#113

Post by Alex3917 »

donatj wrote: post #10

I work in EdTech, I have for a very long time now, and the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level. The promise of EdTech was that kids could learn where they are. A kid who's behind can actually continue to learn rather than being left behind. A kid who's ahead can be nurtured. We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaint…

> the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level.

OK but we've known this since, when, the 60s? Look at all the academic research on the adoption (or lack thereof) of programmed instruction, programmed learning, etc.

If we didn't already know this before the "EdTech Revolution" then of course the industry would get a pass, but the fact that we already knew what would happen and why is what makes it a scam.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#114

Post by sixo »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #58
donatj wrote: post #10

I work in EdTech, I have for a very long time now, and the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level. The promise of EdTech was that kids could learn where they are. A kid who's behind can actually continue to learn rather than being left behind. A kid who's ahead can be nurtured. We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaint…

That's "equity" for you. We can't be unfair and give someone something that makes them better. It's easier to keep the top kids down than it is to lift the bottom kids up.

Equity really isn't the ideology doing this, except in a few cases, it's something else. I'd speculate the dominant effect is that people tend to dislike and resist what they have a hard time imagining: there's a strong bias towards easily-administrated uniformity, and ppl tend to enforce what they know and what they were brought up in themselves

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#115

Post by brightball »

donatj wrote: post #10

I work in EdTech, I have for a very long time now, and the problem I have seen is no one in education is willing to ACTUALLY let kids learn at their own level. The promise of EdTech was that kids could learn where they are. A kid who's behind can actually continue to learn rather than being left behind. A kid who's ahead can be nurtured. We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaint…

This is why I hear stories every year at my kids school about home school kids enrolling, then being place in math classes 1-2 years ahead of the max possible for somebody who had been in the school system to start with.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#116

Post by WillPostForFood »

debacle wrote: post #5

The article doesn't match the conclusion. The buried lede: procrastinating with the Internet is easier than procrastinating without the Internet. If you care about your kids, control their access to the brain rotting aspects of technology like a tyrant.

The article is pretty supportive of the conclusion. Reductively, EdTech is putting screens in front of kids at school. Doing that leads to distraction and procrastination than using those screens for learning.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#117

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

Yhippa wrote: post #95
basilgohar wrote: post #68

As someone who's worked in EdTech for around two decades, I know why people think this. It's what a lot people here have already said. Education is what is failing, EdTech didn't magically solve this. Just like money, you can't just throw tech at education and expect it to solve anything. There are too many profitable incentives to poor education that are conspiring to perpetuate it. An ill-educated populace is easie…

> There are too many profitable incentives to poor education that are conspiring to perpetuate it. An ill-educated populace is easier to manipulate, gravitate towards consumerism, and won't hold their leaders as accountable. Power generally resides with those who benefit from an ill-educated populace, so anything that would actually help educate children and people at large is discouraged. I want to believe this but…

In the US, it's easy to imagine, or just see, politicians actively opposing expansion of the currently-poor education system. Some actively seek to further defund it (see school vouchers).

As for actively misinforming poor people, that is the day job (campaigning) for countless politicians, who usually spend less than half their time drafting or voting on legislation.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#118

Post by AdamN »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #69
bitcurious wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We had this. It worked well, in my opinion at least, and the number of complaints and straight up threats because kids would learn things "they shouldn't be" was just… insanely frustrating. Can you give examples? Are we talking evolution or addition?

My guess is that the kids were learning ahead of the rest of the class and it made the teacher's life harder to keep track of where each kid is, or had to field questions outside of her expertise since often elementary school teachers only know enough to teach elementary school

Yeah - this is on OP if that is the case. No teacher wants that and it's annoying for the ahead kids and the behind kids. Better to give them something tangential to keep them engaged but still gate on moving ahead with the mainline curriculum.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#120

Post by Retric »

LargeWu wrote: post #45
brainwipe wrote: post #32

IMO education is still built around Victorian structures and needs to be reworked from examinations downwards. Examinations are an exercise in being good at examinations, not proficiency in the subject. Once you strip that away the you wind back all the structures that feed it. You can see this working at schools designed for the neuro diverse. Those students simply can't sit and listen to a teacher all day, so each…

What, specifically, is an example of an exam not measuring proficiency? If an exam is well designed, the student will need to figure out what is being asked and use their mastery to provide an answer.

“Well designed? is doing heavy lifting here. You can get very good at specific test formats in terms of time management, common tricks, etc.

Actual tests include things like: Multiple choice questions were providing answers aids answering the question. Short responses / fill in the blank generally mean people can just regurgitate answers they don’t understand. Essay responses sound great, except you can’t answer many questions and essays writing is a separate skill which heavily influences final scores.

More broadly tests are time limited so can’t test skills that take long periods of time to demonstrate a major issue for say programming.

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