Why Promises of EdTech Disruption Fail: What Should Educators Do Instead

One thing educators can expect—a continuous barrage of new product pitches that claim to have disruptive and transformative abilities—and that is happening as Tech Companies churn out their new gadgets.

AI is just the latest iteration of that pitch. This time, the AI evangelists claim, there is finally going to be profound changes in education.

This prediction is wrong.

Schools are conservative institutions. They resist disruptive change because that’s the way they are built, for better or worse. 

If they change, the do so incrementally and slowly and that is purposeful, because if schools radically changed at the arrival of every technological or pedagogical whim, they would be “fad-surfing institions.”

Institutions that surf the lastest fads don’t every really fundamentally change in ways beneficial to anybody. Once the hype and the money has been spent on EdTech and AI consultants and technological hardware, the school is still there, and history shows it is no better or worse mostly.

Schools spend millions on these so-called “disruptive and transformative initiatives and when the hype dies down and has moved on to the next thing, they are left wandering why things are still the same and where all the money has gone.

True incremental educational change does not come from adopting new gadgets and paying off EdTech and AI consultants.

True incremental change happens when educators as a community of teachers sit down and do the hard work of examining where they are and working to find solutions.

You don’t start with a solution looking for a problem to solve which is what AI seems to be. We did that with PCs, the web, social media, online learning, only to discover that our long-time problems were left behind.

Do I Really Care If My Dishwasher Is Silcon Valley Smart?

 

Photo by Author: Implements of Progress

“Smart technologies” are all around us. Walk into an electronic store, and there are gadgets everywhere, from light switches to TVs that proudly wear the label “smart.” But do we really need “smart” devices? Does my overhead light turning on by itself really provide any value? Am I just so lazy and obsessed with efficiency that flipping a light switch won't do? Tech companies to car companies hope you fall for smartness. They have worked overtime to make sure “smart” label is something that sells. In the end, who's the sucker and has really earned the label "dumb"?

What does “smart” mean? I think the simplest definition of this term is offered by Jathan Sadowski in his book Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism Is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World. He writes:

...’smart’ means a thing is embedded with digital technology for data collection, network connectivity, and enhanced control.”

The question is, Do I really care whether my TV collects data, is connected to network, and provides enhanced control? Perhaps I do for some of these, I like being able to stream to my TV, because it is much easier way of getting programming than by antenna or cable, so network connectivity I care about. The other two, well, not so much.

I really do not want my devices collecting data about me and my usage. Someone out there knowing which shows I watch is not something I value at all. I don’t even like the recommendations that pop up in Netflix and would prefer the old fashioned way of reading descriptions and then deciding what I want to watch. And, the “control?” Whose control I would ask? If means I have more control, I thought I was already in control. If it means someone else's, that's creepy.

I once purchased a dishwasher that self-declared to be “smart.” Admittedly, hearing that it had that feature seemed to be an added plus at first. Then, I realized, I bought a dishwasher to wash the dishes, not to send back my usage data to some company in the cloud so that they can profit from it. I disabled the smartness, and the dishwasher continues to do what I bought it for in the first place: wash the dishes.

"Smartness" has been peddled by companies as innovative and must-have. When Big Tech throws around its “innovative” products and ideas, we would do well to ask: “For whom is this product really innovative?” “Who is really gaining the most from this “smartness” thing?

Chances are, the answers to those questions are not "me" or at least entirely me. The whole industry of Big Tech kind of reminds me of Leroy, the used car salesman. He’d tell you that the car could fly if it means you would buy it. Silicon Valley Tech Companies have earned that same label, slimy salesmanship.

OpenEd: Free, Open Source EdTech Video and Games Resource for Teachers

OpenEd is a free service that offers users what it terms "the largest educational resource catalog with over a quarter of a million Common Core-aligned videos, games, and assessments." Users can do anyone of the following:

• Search for video and games by keyword or directory subject.
• Create online courses, allowing for class management, and OpenEd provides resource recommendations according to topics.
• Browse Common Core resources and resources for other standards.
• Create playlists of videos and other resources for easier access later.

Teachers can register for free accounts. OpenEd is free and open source and offers users a free applicating programming interface (API) so other websites can utilize OpenEd's resources. Check out OpenEd at their web site here: http://www.opened.io/.

OpenEd Website