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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

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Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#351

Post by rahimnathwani »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #340
rahimnathwani wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not even sure it's a good classroom tool, but rather is a useful _supplement_ We may soon get to a point where, for certain subjects, edtech is the classroom tool, and the teacher/coach is the supplement. I don't mind sitting down with him and books (he's 2 grades ahead). My son is also 2 grades ahead in math. He skipped Kindergarten and now, in 3rd grade, he does math with the 4th grade class (which is currently…

> in 3rd grade, he does math with the 4th grade class (which is currently working through the Singapore Math 4A book). Coincidentally, my son is also in 3rd grade and also on Singapore 4A book at home :) He can't do math with the 4th grade class (not really an option at our school) but does 5th grade level with the apps they use in class (DreamBox, not sure which others). > But usually he's just been too aggressive a…

If someone's only exposure to math edtech tools is Dreambox, IXL, Prodigy etc., they would be right to be skeptical.

Math Academy is great (4th grade onward). Beast Academy online is also very good (up to 5th grade only).

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#352

Post by panzagl »

tejohnso wrote: post #99
panzagl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife had one kid scream for 10 minutes yesterday and another throw a chair. Another just sat there and didn't do a thing for 7 hours. The Little House/Christmas Story model hasn't been able to work for a long time.

> My wife had one kid scream for 10 minutes yesterday Did she actually allow this kid to disrupt the entire class for 10 minutes? Isn't there a responsibility to all the other students that they should have a reasonable learning environment? I remember being sent to the office for a lot less than that.

She called for admin backup, which reacted pretty quickly, but they basically just calm him down and return him to class. And of course the screaming happened after a series of de-escalation attempts by her, which often works, but not always. He is non-neurotypical, mostly ahead of the class academically (though there are gaps), but very behind emotionally. He is the 'worst behaved' in her grade level, but every class has at least one that is liable to 'go off' as it were. It is in no way fair to the rest of the class, but while the state we live in likes to act blue, when it comes to paying for social services it's pretty red. And this is in a state with school choice, so don't think that necessarily helps either...

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#353

Post by cwoolfe »

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…

Our district uses Light Speed Content Filter. It uses a web proxy with tls decryption to read the page content and block certain videos flagged by the AI. Works way better than our previous system. That being said, now the issue is a matter of distractions. They can watch "appropriate" videos, but they just watch at inappropriate times...like during class or at lunch. As a parent, I take an allow-list only approach to YouTube. they can only watch individual videos/channels I select. everything else is blocked.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#354

Post by tombert »

corytheboyd wrote: post #86
tombert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit tangential but related. I dropped out of college in 2012 and was one of the very lucky few who managed to find software engineering work almost immediately [1]. I had a bit of a complex about not having a degree, and a few times I tried going back only to drop out again because I would get bored; by the time I had gone back, I already knew enough stuff to be qualified as an engineer, and as such I didn't feel l…

I dropped out around the same time, and one other key thing I’ve noticed is the tech bootcamps hadn’t completely taken over yet, so there was less of a flood of other entry level people to fight for every single opening. You would even get a call back sometimes applying cold (no internal referral). I tend to throw “lucky” in there too when telling the tale of how I got my foot in the door— it’s hard not to, consideri…

I got kind of double-lucky in my case too.

When I dropped out, I assumed that my job options were limited to minimum wage work, so I applied to McDonald's, Lowes, Target, Walmart (as a cashier), Aldi, and a few other places in one day (driving around the Orlando area). When I got home, sort of on a whim I applied to junior-level Coldfusion+Flash job I saw on Craigslist, thinking that there's no chance but it also didn't cost me anything to apply.

The only job that called me back was the software job, which I thought was bizarre, but it's what kickstarted the career.

In hindsight, I think the reason none of the others called me back was because they saw some college and they were afraid that I would quit the second that I went back to school.

I learned two important lessons that day: 1) The typical Wayne Gretzky "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take", and 2) the less qualified you are for a job, the more willing a company is to overlook a lack of qualifications.

I'd like to elaborate on point 2 because I don't see it mentioned much.

The conventional wisdom for finding a job (qualified or otherwise) is to see what's in demand and learn that skill (e.g. something popular like Java), but then you hit a problem: everyone is applying to that job. There are lots of people who learned Java from school or work, and you're competing with all of them. 2012-dropout-tombert would be applying for the same job as a 4.0-GPA'd-Harvard-Graduate, and as such the company will almost always choose the latter.

When I applied to the Coldfusion job, I accidentally discovered that because it was (even in 2012) a pretty niche bit of tech, no one applied to it. I didn't really know Coldfusion either, but the fact that I applied at all was an artifact of me not having the option to work in a more popular platform, and I was able to learn it quick enough to where it wasn't really a problem.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#355

Post by aaron695 »

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…

[dead]

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#356

Post by rpcope1 »

ryanmcbride wrote: post #132
tombert wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit tangential but related. I dropped out of college in 2012 and was one of the very lucky few who managed to find software engineering work almost immediately [1]. I had a bit of a complex about not having a degree, and a few times I tried going back only to drop out again because I would get bored; by the time I had gone back, I already knew enough stuff to be qualified as an engineer, and as such I didn't feel l…

I dropped out and became an engineer at almost the exact same time. I've thought about going back for a degree but I was always so horribly bad at school that it's scared me off. I was bad at it mainly for undiagnosed ADHD reasons that I'm now getting successfully treated, but I'm still worried that if I went back the same things would just happen again. I'd join a class, I'd already kind of know what they're teachin…

WGU is a real and legit, and probably one of the top things I would consider if needed to get a bachelors degree while working as a now middle aged adult.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#357

Post by cwoolfe »

Nickersf wrote: post #199

Imagine blending the traditional educational structures into EdTech and using network engineering to clamp down what can be accessed in a classroom device to only the educational software modules needed. For example, you could put timers on how long each module is open. Give teachers the ability to override them and tap into each student individually if needed. The issue is that the surrounding infrastructures would…

yes, I see a lot of value in this approach, especially for ADHD learners (who represent about 10% of the student population). Imagine if the only thing a kid could access on their school computer was the thing they were supposed to be doing? How much would that help focus? On MacBooks, you can use https://gertrude.app/ to enforce this allow-list only approach, which has proven very beneficial for homeschool students.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#358

Post by floatrock »

mbesto wrote: post #121
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…

> It's what a lot people here have already said. Education is what is failing, EdTech didn't magically solve this. To expand this more globally - anything that requires human interaction fails at scale. Healthcare, trade skills, education, housing, etc. is all "failing" to some degree no matter how much technology we throw at it. The costs continually go up and the value isn't paired to it.

> anything that requires human interaction fails at scale

What do you mean by "fails"? It doesn't have the zero-marginal-cost dynamic favored by the investor class of the tech industry?

Don't confuse "you can't scale human interactions" with "human interaction fails at scale". The former is talking about the venture-capital-accelerated winner-takes-all business strategy, the latter is a misunderstanding of civil societies and living a rewarding life because you can only envision such things through the lens of owning a zero-marginal-cost process.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#359

Post by yesfitz »

ryanisnan wrote: post #265

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,…

There are, which is why the author included the quoted clarification of what "EdTech" means in the context of this article. Is there another term the article could use that would fit better or be more clear?

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#360

Post by AlchemistCamp »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #281
throwaway2037 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> Are there any highly advanced economies that have "a formal assessment by the national engineering council" for software engineering or computer science? The EUR ING certificate from Engineers Europe can be awarded to those who have attained a degree in engineering, but also for those with "no exemplifying formal qualifications, but will have engaged in professional Career Learning and peer review via the individua…

And so what?

Those gatekeepers might not accept a John Carmack or a Palmer Luckey (or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison or Vitalik Buterin, etc, etc), but how many of their certificate-holders have done any comparably significant engineering work?

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