Myths and threats (?) of education technology
In one of her last weekly newsletters “Hack Education”, journalist and critical researcher of technology Audrey Watters, shared a long list of “The worst educational technology debacles from the decade”. This was right before the COVID-19 pandemic, which promoted the resurgence of some technologies that we thought were gone for good, and reinforced the divide between those countries who have access to technology and Internet, from those who don’t. Though Watters critics are valid, I share a summary of that list with the worst technologies of the decade, but also, of those that might have been helpful.
Though I don’t have such a cynic or pessimist position on technology in education as she does -in fact, I think it’s positive-, for Watters talking about “ed tech” is directly surveillance. Surveillance is an important subject to have in mind, but in the same way, there is not much research on the benefits of promoting certain technology, as there isn’t of its disadvantages.
Because the list is so long, and in its majority, it refers to education technology available in the United States I share some of those 100 which I thought interesting to reflect on what happens in the region, and for Argentina:
98. The trend of taking higher classes kids off the screens. Is a trend in Silicon Valley. The myths around technologies which are harmful, with the intention of make something else fashionable, were very present these years.
94. Websites or platforms in which parents can consult their children’s reports. They use it little and make them obsess with what their kids do at school. In Mendoza they implemented this a few years ago. Anyone concerned with surveillance? Student’s data?
50. One Laptop per Child. This program promoted at a moment by Nicholas Negroponte seems to have arrived to its end. Watters says that besides the difficulties for its application (to get some zones in Ethiopy they had to throw notebooks from helicopters) in countries such as Perú no tests revealed an improvement in mathematics or language with OLPC. So, what are they useful for? To connectivity, sure, for kids having Internet, the challenge is how to make them work. Interesting for Argentina, where theConectar Igualdad (Connecting Equality) program comeback has been announced
Image of Conectar Igualdad vía el Flickr de ANSES
I think that in countries such as Argentina they are very important, the thing is that beyond investment in technology there is 1) an adequate coordination between Nation-Provinces-schools 2) the investment in training for including them in the already established dynamics. And/or new. This importance was evident during the COVID pandemic. Poor families had to use one mobile phone for all the students in a house who had online classes and homework. Having a computer is still relevant.
48. The hour of code. This is very interesting because one of the fashionable slogans, and in other places I had already read it: there is and there will be more job demand in jobs related to health, home care, etc. than in programming.
Are more programmers necessary for what we expect to be the jobs of “the future”? Yes, sure, is a very important skill for the so called knowledge economy. Now, is ok to make of this the school star and throw some other learning skills and ways out? This haven’t been studied enough.
Thus, this claim that all kids will be programmers is for now a nice PR campaign. Without mentioning all those $ behind these initiatives.
25. Peter Thiel. Lol this made me laugh, even though I like him a lot, I follow what he does, his videos and I even his book, Thiel and his campaign against traditional education is also questionable. I insist, he is a very intelligent and interest investor. His programs like 20 Under 20, The Thiel Fellowship, etc. look for getting kids out of a debt cycle (very common in the United States) and making them entrepreneurs. He’s an idealist, and he might be right in terms of how much money without returns education has but every time he argues this, people asks the same: but didn’t you graduate from the best universities of the world??? Thiel promotes meritocracy, says Watters, because the entrepreneurship world is another system of the sort.
Amon these there are many points I don’t include because they are reviews of technologies or specific development that for Watters were a fiasco, made by Google (Google Glass), Apple, y/o Facebook (VR), interactive boards, etc., among many devices and/or tools for which a strong lobby was mad from companies, and that for schools, regions and states were a waste of time. She also criticizes the MIT Media Lab, which I knew and loved, even thoughEpstein’s issue set a before and after There are people doing cool stuff, such as Scratch which is used in schools worldwide, including Argentina.
13. “Blockchain Anything”. Watters is categorical in this point: stop saying that blockchain will revolutionize education, because it isn’t necessary, according to her.
I don’t have information in this regard. When I read something that mixes blockchain and education, I wonder how much about education the ones proposing this know. “You depend of nobody to validate your knowledge”, “you don’t need paper or an office for”. Ok, yes, all of us who went trough getting a graduate or postgraduate know what those processes are. But thinking that certificates and/or papers are equal to knowing something, or to the validation of knowledge is wrong. That’s why we need to give more time to those applications of a certain technology. Sure, they transform processes, but I doubt that they would made disappear education and knowledge as a social process.
6. “Everybody should learn to code”. Again, she says is a myth, and the pressure of an industry (technological) to impose its narrative. Programming is a language, “those who don’t code will suffer as those who didn’t know how to read in the s. XIX”. You know what other language exists? Science.
5. “The year of MOOCs”. She is very critical here, in 2011 there was an explosion around this platforms, and in universities with investment funds hey went the whole way with them (edx from Harvard/MIT, Coursera, with people from Stanford, Udacity, etc.). I like them, probably from being from a peripheral country, and of a province, I see many positive characteristics in them. But I also believe there’s a potential threat in them, of which I wrote some time ago: MOOCs and the Matthew Effect in Education Technology. In educational research we refer to this term as the possibility of an undesirable effect: those who make this courses, are already in the educational “corridor” Thus, the challenge is how to make online teaching reach those outside the education system.
3 and 2. Venture Capital (VCs) and philanthropy. Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, are those influencing a lot -according to Watters’ report- in this issue, not only with money but with decision making around which technologies and practice will schools adopt. Again, they are interesting and innovative personalities. But it is to note that venture capital and philanthropy are shaping “education agendas”. She also criticizes those incubators accelerating “edtech” startups, because in many cases they have people getting in education for $, but without researching a lot the subject.
In summary. I recommend you to read the full report because in Argentina, and in some provinces we’re just seeing a bit of this. The thing is when we don’t asses the bad and good effects of those innovations.
Lastly, I understand the critic to the VC and entrepreneurship world, but in education as in any other industry it has always been like this. Capital does not need to have all this considerations, but States do. This is why public-private synergy is so important. And that letting those technologies enter school have knowledge regarding social sciences, pedagogy, above others.
