The EdTech Revolution Has Failed

  > A pre-Covid survey exploring how US students aged 8-18 utilize digital technologies both inside and outside of school provides the answer (values below are per week) ...If we extrapolate and consider a typical U.S. academic school year of 36 weeks, these numbers suggest that students spend 198 hours annually using digital devices for learning purposes, and 2,028 hours annually using those same exact tools to jump around between scatter-shot media content.

It's like arguing that a student who likes reading Harry Potter, or Comic Books 2 hours a night is forming habits against the idea of using books for learning. Students who play games or watch movies are not alcoholics using beer for buoyancy studies.

Not only this, it groups listening to music on a computer as an independent recreation activity, and not something that students will do concurrently with homework or other tasks outside of class, double dipping on recreation hours. As if listening to music isn't a boon for learning, which it easily can be.

The gatekeeping element seems to have developed in tandem with / response to the signalling hypothesis [1]. Simply put, if kids are trying to do the minimum necessary to get by, we raise the bar on the minimum standard until we're satisfied. Teachers (K-12 at least) respond with grade inflation, adding lots of noise to the signal, and we in turn respond with standardized testing in an attempt to clean up the noise.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education

I'd be shocked if that's not a significant part of why. Most folks will get more work done when their only alternatives are trashcan basketball or doodling, versus... the Web.

I suspect another cause is that a great deal of application of computer technology in organizations aims to improve a certain kind of legibility of processes, which is something management loves a great deal, but the cost of attaining this legibility is high enough (including in hidden or hard-to-track ways) that any benefits are neutralized or all-accounted-for costs actually go up.

[EDIT] A third cause is probably that median ability to use computers remains very low among office workers. There continue to exist offices where knowing how to copy-paste(!) for more than just bare text, or extremely-basic spreadsheet use beyond "put numbers in it" makes you a wizard. I'm not kidding.

But none of them address the structural problems / challenges with education. Teachers are burnt out, many teachers are terrible with tech, do not get enough support, the structure of education systems doesn't allow for flexibility. Parents aren't involved in many cases, kids are hungry, social worker type issues. Education IT is often underfunded, their IT workers get low pay so they leave. The list is endless.

But tech is dropped in like a bomb on a building that is supposed to help with renovation ...