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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

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Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#261

Post by pessimizer »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #248

The argument Jared makes in the body of his article ("The argument I’m making is that digital technologies so often aren’t used for learning that...") is less bold and sweeping than the one in the title ("The EdTech Revolution Has Failed"). It's true that edtech hasn't (yet) created an educational utopia, as some people may have imagined or hoped. But there are educational technology tools that my son (8yo) uses seve…

> 1. Math Academy (truly amazing for 4th grade math all the way to first year of undergrad: https://www.bit.ly/ma-way)

This stuff is so exciting. He dips in and out of HN periodically when the subject comes up.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#262

Post by miningape »

Parfait__ wrote: post #101
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 think it's weird that you're not telling us what "things they shouldn't be" are. There are plenty of things I think kids shouldn't be learning.

It's an edtech platform for kids - forgive me but I somewhat doubt there's porn on there

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#263

Post by handfuloflight »

luqtas wrote: post #181
unsupp0rted wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen a teacher that was comfortably capable with even 50% of whatever EdTech they're handed. How are they supposed to maximize the use of it? I remember having to painfully sit through multi-hour presentations in which they'd explain how to use a hamburger menu to find the app settings, and half the participants furiously scribbled down notes so they wouldn't get lost later when they needed to find the set…

as a counter-point, not a teacher nor related to but i heard around 400 hours of pedagogy podcasts, be it the science of it, small-talk about teaching & sometimes edtech software that seriously, most of the time just sounded as apps coming from the next guy trying to be the next silicon money maker by offering what Google Docs offers but in a fancy app or in the most complex cases, what Matrix/Discord offers for free…

> there was good apps & often these were backed/based by novel & evidence based ways of teaching

What are the good apps? In what direction do you think educational software should go?

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#264

Post by csa »

JasserInicide wrote: post #221
csa wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What, specifically, is an example of an exam not measuring proficiency Not op, but a few examples: 1. Test structures that reward good time management. The paper SAT is a good example of this. The early items in a section are (were?) easy, the middle items were medium difficulty, and the toughest items were towards the end. A good test take would manage their time so that they spent the most amount of time on quest…

I think the SAT is a ludicrous setup given that most people never see anything like it in their lives again but the practice of studying for passing an exam of some kind is an absolutely invaluable skill

> I think the SAT is a ludicrous setup given that most people never see anything like it in their lives again

Yeah, I guess.

I think the issue is that the folks best suited to get the most out of college don’t really need to prep much to absolutely crush the SAT.

Most people are just woefully underprepared.

> but the practice of studying for passing an exam of some kind is an absolutely invaluable skill

Yep. Learning how to study, learn, and prep for a test are good skills to have.

That said, for folks who have done well in a semi-rigorous school environment and read the right things (high-brow periodicals), very little test prep is actually needed to get them close to their theoretical max score.

There are a few catches, though:

- Some people in the US have an incredibly irrational fear of math.

- The math curriculum is super-slow and limited for those who like math, often turning them away from it (or at least the high school math classes).

- Most folks have no idea what university-level literacy looks like. Doing things like reading “high-brow” periodicals gives high school students most of the vocab and text structures covered in the SAT.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#265

Post by ryanisnan »

This strikes me as a really strange way to define EdTech:

> In this article, I’m defining EdTech as any student-employed, internet-connected digital device; this includes computers, laptops, tablets, cell phones, and smart watches. I am not discussing or evaluating the use of digital devices by teachers.

Aren't there a huge swath of self-defined "EdTech" startups aimed at tools for teachers, and-or use in the class, perhaps exclusively by the teacher?

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#266

Post by theamk »

Afton wrote: post #106
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be fair, it is less about "keeping top kids down" and more about "let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids". Put that way it seems less malicious, and more like probably the right thing to do over all, while still being extremely frustrating if you are, or are the parent of, a 'top kid'. I know that in Seattle, I've been very frustrated with all the talk and promise of our school to provide enri…

I think you've got lucky.

In our public school, there are multiple math classes already with people randomly assigned to one of them, and both advanced and regular classes are taught by the same teachers. So there is very little extra cost to have more advanced math classes - shuffle kids around and allow teachers to teach one of the classes faster. And yet we only one advanced half-class, despite dozens of students wanting to go there.

Why? Our school management is explicitly against that. I've talked to them directly, and they admitted that they are very much against any "out of the grade" behavior, the teachers are not allowed to give more advanced material. It was all in the name of equity of course.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#267

Post by theamk »

dartos wrote: post #162
Afton wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it is less about "keeping top kids down" and more about "let's use our very scarce resources helping the bottom kids". Put that way it seems less malicious, and more like probably the right thing to do over all, while still being extremely frustrating if you are, or are the parent of, a 'top kid'. I know that in Seattle, I've been very frustrated with all the talk and promise of our school to provide enri…

I don’t think anyone is trying to keep bright kids down, but you need to ask. Is it worth it to spend monumental effort trying to get not very bright children to meet some minimum requirement OR is it more worth it to just encourage and lift up brighter students. I don’t think there’s a clear answer, but what we have isn’t it.

Unless your school is so small that there is only one math class per grade, it is entirely possible to do both.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#268

Post by yawnxyz »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #56
yawnxyz wrote: post #16

We'll do/try/pay for anything except for teachers and good teaching

Tech is considered scalable, human resources and interactions are not.

that's true! I think in a hundred years we'll learn that some things almost always degrade with scale, no matter how much we try

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#269

Post by yunohn »

hnpolicestate wrote: post #100
empressplay wrote: post #27

It seems the real issue here is that school devices should be locked down better? It's honestly shocking they aren't already. Why on Earth would kids be allowed to access TikTok over their school network? Mind-boggling, seriously.

Fascinating. I teach and believe the devices should be more open. I've personally witnessed student agitation, anger, anxiety etc when barred from changing their wallpaper, from adding a bookmark to Chrome, from changing basic accessibility settings. I have a hard time seeing how we can lock these devices down any further. Though I do believe schools need an edu version of YouTube. YouTube kids is too childish for ol…

I’m pretty certain the previous commenter was specifically talking about restricting unfettered network access to YT/Tiktok, and not locking the wallpaper or bookmarks.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#270

Post by krunck »

In my experience as a parent of a senior in high school, the classes where the least amount of learning happens are those that depend on and are designed around "EdTech". The best ones still use paper and books.

My son's AP calculus 1 and 2 classes were all paper and books and run by dedicated teachers. I have never seen my son learn so much and put in so much effort. Other classes relying on "EdTech" are just babysitting with free grades. The teachers give up because they can't obtain a basic level of control of the student's use of the devices.

In my son's 12 years of education so far there has never been a class where the teacher had control of the technology - the Chromebooks. There was no switch the teacher had to turn the Chromebooks off or lock them. No ability to filter out games. The school district IT could never stay on top of the filters. Games are a constant presence.

Having these entertainment devices in the classroom just distracts from real learning and only serves to feed kid's behavioral data into Google's profiling algorithms.

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