Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

afterbabel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 528 posts

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#321

Post by Molitor5901 »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #20

The teaching method I find best is a teacher explaining and writing with chalk on the blackboard, and the students taking handwritten notes on paper, asking whenever something is not clear. In other words, the most boring classical setup possible. Of course all the nuances and little details make all the difference: board picture, structure, teacher personality, pacing, choice of topic, interaction, motivation, excit…

You would enjoy Cliff Stoll's writings on this topic. He hates technology in the classroom, and still firmly believes teachers with chalkboards and flashcards are superior to any technology in the classroom. I disagree with him only in so much as technology allows for media that can help simplify some things, but agree with him that nothing beats a good teacher.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#322

Post by lolinder »

emodendroket wrote: post #320
lolinder wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incredibly frustrating thing about this is that this is always done in the name of "equity", but the result is that the system perpetuates the inequities that already exist. Because the public schools force kids into grade bands and don't allow children who are ahead to learn at their level, wealthy parents (and only wealthy parents) figure out ways to supplement or move their kids into schools that are appropria…

It is not "always" done for that purpose; often people don't want children to learn things for other reasons, like wanting to have more control over them, not liking the implications of certain historical events, or having fanciful ideas about preventing their children from engaging in risky behaviors by pretending they don't exist.

> 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. ...

> Now in order to keep schools paying for our services, every kid is banded into a range based on their grade. They are scored/graded based on their grade level rather than their growth.

This is the behavior that I'm referring to. I'm not talking about political fights about what goes into the curriculum in the first place, I'm talking specifically about efforts to keep children from getting ahead along whatever the curriculum is already defined to include.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#323

Post by johndhi »

red_admiral wrote: post #197
johndhi wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you give an example of someone being upset and what the thing they'd learned that they "shouldn't?" as a parent I find it confusing that I'd consider getting upset if my kid was learning 6th grade history as a 3rd grader (or 2nd grade art as a 3rd grader). what actual examples are there? the only examples of parents being upset about learning I'm aware of lately is, like, critical theory and marxism

Sex education? Not in the sense of the kids watching porn, but learning about contraception and STIs and that kind of thing.

fair enough but is that really the reason edtech has failed?

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#324

Post by parpfish »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #161
parpfish wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think part of the reason computers swept into classrooms so quickly is that we had a generation of old folks seeing their jobs get computerized and they (correctly) felt that computer-literacy would be essential for a huge swath of the workforce. however, this group also had a very hard time learning how to use computers later in their career and felt "wow, this is really hard. we need to be very proactive about te…

…except today's kids are not at all computer literate. They simply know how to click around and sometimes type.

Clicking around and sometimes typing is enough computer literacy for most jobs.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#325

Post by hobs »

agumonkey wrote: post #315

I stopped monitoring that side of tech, but early MOOCs (first gen coursera, edx, stanford) were as good or even better in some regards than my own college programming studies[0]. I could engage deeper in the material and there was some healthy emulation between people on the dedicated IRC rooms. On site college doesn't give you full focus, you might be distracted by people, teachers won't necessarily be more present…

Yeah, it was fun and a little mind boggling when I was just starting out that the person who maintained the python library everyone was using was teaching the class on how to use it. (waving at web.py)

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#326

Post by gorjusborg »

I think education is best done with 'minimal power' in the students' hands.

An example:

A student is taught how to calculate an integral with MathCAD on a school PC. They now know how to use MathCAD on Windows to calculate an integral. If the OS or software changes, they may lose that knowledge, and they may not understand the concept. They've effectively 'lost' knowledge due to time moving on.

Differently:

A student is taught how to calculate an integral with pencil and paper. Due to pencil and paper doing nothing without the student driving it, they must understand the steps to the process, and in doing so, will likely get to understanding why those are the steps. At the very least they may be curious about the steps, why they work, and why all are required. If you give them a PC, they'll likely be able to figure out how to use it, as they understand the concept. If you take away the PC, they'll still be able to use pencil and paper.

The distraction/multitasking angle is interesting too, but I really think education works best when you take all unnecessary power away from the student. They are forced to learn the concepts rather than get lost in all the peripheral details (PC, software, notifications, etc.) and understanding of fundamental concepts will rarely become useless. While understanding of computing platforms or software versions will very quickly become useless.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#327

Post by hintymad »

As someone who tried all kinds of EdTech, I'd venture to say that the key to education quality is not in tech but in pedagogy and student engagement. The pedagogy depends on the quality of teachers, or specifically the quality of lecturing and the quality of assignments. Good assignments are really hard to come by. They need to be tailored. They need to have progressive difficulties. They need to be designed to help students understand fundamentals. They need to inspire students. And very importantly, they need to be graded and reviewed by the teachers. All such will require dedication and ingenuity of teachers.

As for the student engagement, I believe it depends on the passion and curiosity of a student, but I also recognize that most students simply don't want to work hard, and therefore they need certain healthy pressure, or at least a specific goal. Maybe EdTech can make quality teachers and homework accessible to millions, but it's just hard to keep students engaged. On the other hand, there are enough amazing free education materials in libraries and on the internet. The barrier to access them is really one's motivation.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#328

Post by parpfish »

gorjusborg wrote: post #326

I think education is best done with 'minimal power' in the students' hands. An example: A student is taught how to calculate an integral with MathCAD on a school PC. They now know how to use MathCAD on Windows to calculate an integral. If the OS or software changes, they may lose that knowledge, and they may not understand the concept. They've effectively 'lost' knowledge due to time moving on. Differently: A student…

I think part of the problem is that they decided to use the computers for every class instead of using computers in classes about computers.

Tell kids to do open ended history/english research on a computer, they get sidetracked and waste time.

Tell the kids to do a computer thing on the computer (like use math as to solve this question), they have a much more focused task at hand and will use the computer as the teacher intended.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#329

Post by narrator »

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 the Lysenkoism of our age is all people are equally intelligent and equally good at all things, thus one size fits all education is an ideological imperative. There are too many unacceptable facts that lead to conclusions that contradict this ideology in the kind of approach you're talking about.

If all children do not perform roughly the same, ideologues will not think that people have naturally different talents and abilities, but instead think there are implied violations of laws protecting against discrimination in education. That being said, I'm sure homeschoolers and people not indoctrinated, even those with lesser abilities, will really appreciate this approach.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#330

Post by fredgrott »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #235
ggm wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some economies, to be an engineer means a chartered engineer, which demands completion of a formal assessment by the national engineering council. I'm not throwing shade on you, my degree from 1982 was 1 year too early to make certification in my field and I have worked for 42 years in software and systems without charter status. I am however cautious of using the word. I call myself a computer scientist even when…

I see this type of comment on HN frequently. I have a dim view of national certifications for software engineering or computer science. Are there any highly advanced economies that have "a formal assessment by the national engineering council" for software engineering or computer science? If so, are they useful? Do they actually indicate quality? For me, the field(s) are changing so fast, that it hardly makes sense.…

On personal note, Series 7, 63, and 62 are not hard tests....one can pass it without much study...I did pass the series 62 in my sleep.

But keep in mind those are legal compliance tests...WTF?

In short words, they give the legal basis for why in finance we have to follow a sales script as it then covers the legal boilerplate mess...

On the other hand in the late 1980s I had a chance to be in the Turtle Trading class in Chicago....obviously that would have been more helpful as I think the success rate was over 50% for students of that pratical turtle trading class.

Post reply on HN