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The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

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Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#411

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

dwater wrote: post #369
dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>An ill-educated populace is easier to manipulate, gravitate towards consumerism, Very wrong. Education only camouflages stupidity, it does not remove it. And then part of education is indoctrination to trust authority (eg. trust the science). That said, basic education reading/writing/simple math/science is indeed valuable.

"Education only camouflages stupidity, it does not remove it." You are arguing that low intelligence is innate, unchangeable. Which sounds very much like saying stupidity is genetic.

Yes, it is innate, with a high degree of heritability. No one questions physical traits are innate, but some how when it comes to IQ it become highly contested...

Why, do think otherwise?

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#412

Post by phil21 »

econonut wrote: post #381
phil21 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> wealthy parents (and only wealthy parents) figure out ways to supplement or move their kids into schools that are appropriate for their level. Not true. AP courses and magnet schools are the sole way for working class/poor students to get ahead in life in the public school system. Myself and many friends took advantage of this, and zero had wealthy parents. Many had food scarcity levels of poverty at home but recei…

It’s very much true that wealthy parents supplement their kids to keep them challenged and leveling up, so to say. What you’re describing re: AP classes is for high school students. While the parent comment may have been referring to high school, I imagine they meant elementary and middle school level. Students with support (read: challenged to learn at their level and not slowed down to the pace of the average stude…

I understand that wealthy parents are going to show up in these stats far more often than non-wealthy. I take umbrage at the statement it's only the wealthy. It has turned into effectively only for the wealthy due to the focus on equity over the past 20+ years as we've torn down any sort of public programs for these students.

My advanced class placement started far earlier than high school. 5th grade is when I recall being put into the advanced track along with others of demonstrated ability. I'd say from my memory maybe 1/3rd of those students could be described as wealthy by any sort of the word. But they'd be more middle class vs. working class in retrospect. They just seemed wealthy in comparison at the time.

The one thing that had near 100% correlation was highly involved parents - even if they were single moms who never had time to be directly involved. All the kids were held accountable at home. I never had outside tutoring, and few of my peers did either. It was all in-school education, where we were removed from normal classes for a few subjects but otherwise part of our grade level for everything else like social studies or gym. Plenty of time spent with said friends at various houses doing homework together though.

I totally agree this needs to happen at a very young age. I was able to test out of the public high school in 10th grade due to being tracked the way I was in grade school and junior high. High school due to no advanced courses being available was an utter waste of time. Those programs that got me there have now been long-removed in the name of equity. This is the one political topic I will speak out on, since it's outright evil what we are doing kids in the name of fairness.

You really couldn't come up with a better plan to cripple a society than what we are doing to public education.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#413

Post by zie »

zie wrote: post #288

Most student devices are older Android or iPad tablets. Sometimes they get older generation Chromebooks. They are not getting M4 laptops. Then EdTech delivers MS teams level bloatware and expects it to run? This stuff is generally absolute garbage that even at the most optimistic barely works as advertised. Lots of this stuff gets built with very little thought on how it's supposed to integrate into a classroom setti…

sorry about the formatting. It won't let me edit it now either.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#414

Post by tasuki »

cwdegidio wrote: post #142
el_benhameen wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also tangential, but do you feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth out of the WGU program? I have also been employed as degree-less an engineer for a long time (I have a BA in an unrelated subject), and I’ve occasionally thought about going back to get a BS or a masters in comp sci. Partially for the signaling aspect, and partially to fill in any knowledge gaps that I’m unaware of. WGU’s pacing and pricing sound…

Not OP, but I think it was worth it. Within a year of getting my BSCS, I added almost 25% to my salary. It gave me the leverage I needed to push for more. For someone coming into it with no experience I can’t say how well it will play out, but for a degreeless developer, I think it just checks that one box and helps.

> Within a year of getting my BSCS, I added almost 25% to my salary.

Why do you think that was related to the degree?

My salary history, in some abstract units, is 15, 50, 100, 600 (yes, that was good), and 50 (not just earning ten times less, but also working about half the hours, very happy with it).

I can't help but see 25% as really insignificant: I've never experienced such a small change! And I don't even have a degree.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#415

Post by bane »

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…

> 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.

That problem is that parents who want to expose their children to more knowledge and better education have no voice -- of any kind. A small group of parents objecting to something violating their niche belief will absolutely nullify the voices of any number of parents thinking otherwise.

There needs to be greater ability on the part of educational organizations to be able to parse the unencumbered learners from these minority case.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#416

Post by chongli »

sangnoir wrote: post #386
chongli wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and more like probably the right thing to do over all It’s only the right thing if you assume equity as a starting position though. We already know, rather robustly, that the weakest and most disruptive students can consume far more than their share of limited resources and produce correspondingly limited outcomes. Another theory goes that we should provide more resources to the best and brightest students so that th…

> Another theory goes that we should provide more resources to the best and brightest students so that they go on to become great leaders and experts in their fields and then improve society for everyone. I'd call it "trickle down" theory. Or "horse-and-sparrow theory" (feeding a horse a huge amount of oats results in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat)

I'd call it "trickle down" theory. Or "horse-and-sparrow theory" (feeding a horse a huge amount of oats results in some of the feed passing through for lucky sparrows to eat)

What you’re missing here is that we’ve been sold on this idea of “one size fits all” education as the only just model. This means forcing the weakest, most disruptive students up to a standard (especially in math and science) they can’t realistically meet. Instead of allowing these kids to find their true calling in some skilled trades such as plumbing, electrical, welding, or construction, we force them to go to university where they’re guaranteed to fail (or drop out trying). And in the process we saddle them with a mountain of student loans!

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#417

Post by paulryanrogers »

SoftTalker wrote: post #349
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…

A big difference though between how you're able to leverage online learning as an adult with at least some real-world life experience vs. what a 3rd-grader can do. I am a strong advocate for zero technology in schools until high school. One thing that is rarely mentioned is that schools that issue technology to students and use it in the classroom now need to have a hardware, software, and network support person at e…

Not using modern technology has its own tradeoffs too. We don't use chalk tablets or kerosene lamps anymore.

That said, I'm a fan of forcing kids to check any phones at the door.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#418

Post by kazinator »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #287
kazinator wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with an Internet- connected screen appear to have a short attention span because they have instant access to a multitude of things that they're interested in, competing for their attention with whatever you want them to be focusing on. That what you want them to be focusing on is no longer the path of least boredom like it was in the previous era; the path of least boredom goes through their mobile device. Peo…

> People with an Internet- connected screen appear to have a short attention span because they have instant access to a multitude of things that they're interested in, competing for their attention with whatever you want them to be focusing on. This is incorrect. There have been repeated studies that show a distinct decline in individuals ability to consume and process long-form text. Folks brains are literally remod…

But that's more like a developmental situation in the individual having to do with their education.

I would expect, say, individuals not going to school past grade two showing a declined ability to multiply 12 by 11.

People's handling of long form text may be off from several decades ago, but it's still better than their illiterate ancestors 500 years ago.

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#419

Post by scott_w »

ovi256 wrote: post #122
scott_w wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But leads to kids guessing. Or, almost as bad, kids learning to approximate the answer. I aced too many multiple-choice physics exams in my GCSEs because the multiple choice was A) 1,000,000 B) 1,000 C) 100 D) 10. Without knowing the formula I was able to eyeball which numbers looked obviously wrong and just select the closest.

That sounds lovely and my guess is that order-of-magnitude estimation was the tested skill

Honestly I think you’re giving British exam boards more credit than they deserve. You options were so ridiculous that you only needed to pay attention for 2 minutes out of a 1 hour lesson to realise what the answer was.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say I left the exam hall still none the wiser of what the actual formulae were!

Re: The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

#420

Post by scott_w »

Ekaros wrote: post #89
whatshisface wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's closer to real life physics than knowing formulas is!

You probably want to get units correct too. Say Newtons vs Kelvins vs Amperes... Still able to estimate right size is in general skill that should be taught.

I don’t even think they taught that much, I’m pretty sure I learnt about Newtons in mechanics (A-level maths course), Kelvin from reading Wikipedia and Amps I think I knew because my dad worked in motor repairs. My knowledge is old now, pre-2008 before the Gove reforms.
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