Maybe Selling AI Like the Web Won't Work: It Just Does Have the Same Utilitarian Value

Has anyone thought that, just maybe, generative AI or LLMs is one of those tech tools that not everyone needs to use? That maybe it is not a technology that they should use at all?

It seems Silicon Valley and AI boosters are trying to sell it like it is the internet, which definitely has been something most of us have found useful in our everyday lives. 

No doubt, the Web has really changed and transformed a lot of what we do, how we live, and communicate, though clearly not always better. (Just look at how social media has been a tool of division and not connection.) Still, I don’t think AI rises to that level of utility nor will it ever.

Just maybe, generative AI and AI in general is just not something everyone needs and something that they use everyday like the Web. I am still trying to find some way to use Siri AI and have not really found a way where it makes anything easier or better.

The problem with generative AI tools and AI is how it’s being sold is wrong. Let’s start by acknowledging that not everyone needs it or wants it. I don’t need to automate anything in my life right now, and there are lots of other people who are the same. I don’t need to create fake pictures or have chatbots write my emails.

Big Tech and AI boosters want their favorite toy to be THE thing everyone uses, and that just doesn’t need to be. 

Maybe, just maybe, generative AI as a tool is more like a chainsaw or sewer line auger or drain snake. You don’t need to cut down trees everyday, nor do you need to snake out that clog in your drain pipes everyday. You just need it sometimes, unless you are a tree trimmer or plumber. My life is not there to justify AI’s existence; AI needs to justify its use in my own life.

I’ll keep toying with Siri AI most likely, but I don’t see the need to fit my life to make AI work. Good tools are there if you need them, and I just haven’t found a way to need it yet.

That’s what Big Tech and AI boosters don’t get, that maybe, as tools go, AI is not useful for everyone and in every job. But, I realize, that shatters their dreams of world transformation and endless profits. Still, as technologies go, its utility is so different from the internet, and it just might ever be something everyone uses or wants to use.

What's With Idea of Becoming an Effective School Leader in 10 Minutes or in 10 Simple Steps?

I recently reviewed a manuscript for a book that was entitled something like the “Ten Minute School Leader.” It was simply a booklist of ten things that an administrator could do to supposedly become effective. When you see something like that or hear a salespitch with that kind of list, run away as fast as you can before it sucks your money away into oblivion. There  are no simple recipes for the complicated things in life.

Let’s face it, you just can’t reduce the complexity of school leadership to 10 things much less master it in 10 minutes. It takes time to learn about students, about teachers, about the school, about the system and that’s just not going to happen in 10 steps or 10 minutes.

It takes longer that 10 minutes to read such drivel.

Leadership of any kind in my experiences is never, ever that simple. These people are preying on a desire for a quick fix that’s just not there.

We live in a world where we want to sacrifice everything for efficiency and save time. 

Some things that are true and important just can’t possible be said simply.

When Educational Leaders and School Technology Leaders Became AI Cheerleaders and Delivered Their School Children to AI Companies

A recent “round table discussion” (See article link at bottom) among education and technology leaders is more like a “Cheering pep rally for AI” than a critical discussion about AI’s place in our schools.

This incident is an excellent example of school leaders serving as a conduit for providing AI companies direct access to school children as uncritical users and consumers of AI.

At this so-called "round-table discussion" there was not a single voice of critical dissent (at least not reported in article) or pushback on AI and what it is doing to our environment, our society, and possibly to our children's minds.

It seems as if every single leader at this round table was a voice for OpenAI, or Google, or Anthropic. They might as well be on their payroll.

There are many school leaders who see their role to deliver students as users and consumers of the latest Silicon Valley tech all in the name of “preparing students for whatever age is brought about by the technology.”

They all assume that there's going to be "an AI-shaped workplace" without mentioning anything that a major goal of AI companies is replacing employees. It is might more likely be a workplace dominated by AI where employees are minions serving the machine in lower paying jobs.

Are there no critical thinkers among school leaders and educational technology leaders? There should be. The consequences of AI are going to be enormous for all of us. We're not talking about calculators here. We're talking about potential technologies that impersonate humans and the AI industry has made it clear it intends to replace workers and their jobs.

There was a time when educational leadership was about advocating for students and not the latest offering from Silicon Valley.

(Portrait of a Graduate in the AI Age, Tech & Learning)

When Ed Tech Companies Become Parasites: Adding Features, Increasing User Costs, and Degrading User Experience to Force Users Choices

Over the years, I noticed a developmental pattern among Ed Tech solutions school districts adopt to solve problems in their schools.

The schools search and find a new, low-priced solution. This solution is not elaborate, but it does what it does well. Sometimes it only does that one thing well such as sending calls to parents or contacting subs for teachers. It does that one thing extremely well and the price is perfect.

Then, this company decides to add on to their product. For example, the teacher sub contact system expands into payroll tracking or HR job posting and onboarding. Now, they have additional products on offer.

But, the school system decides to just stay with the substitute teacher calling system. It works well and better than other solutions but they already have payroll and HR systems working just as well.

The company has invested a ton of money into these additional functions, so they can’t really afford for their customers to stay with the original software, so they devise a plan.

The company INCREASES the price of the original product and they offer a package bundle, still substantially more, but what looks like a deal for the system. It is not because the system has the payroll systems and HR systems and does not need the other products.

But, if they want to keep the original teacher substitute calling system at a cheaper price, they either a) pay a much higher price, or b) adopt the additional payroll system and HR system.

In the end, the school system is either forced to look for an entirely new product and the cycle begins again; keep the product at a much higher price, or adopt the entire product line and spend hours and months transitioning everything and have even more money siphoned away by this so-called New Deal.

I have seen this pattern at least three times in 36 years working with Ed Tech companies, and it really is a great example of Cory Doctorow’s “enshitfication” Ed Tech style.

Invent a great new tech product or software. Add more to the product. Enshittify the experience of your users to force them into an upgrade or your product.

Ed Tech has learned well from Silicon Valley and this playbook is common.

The sad thing is this playbook only transforms Ed Tech companies into parasites who search for ways to suck additional money out of school systems.

That’s what happens when the focus is on short-term gains and not customer loyalty.

School Technologists Should Be on the Side of Parents, Students and Teachers, Not Devices in the Screen Limit Discussion

School technology's problem is they defend the screens at all costs at the expense of the learning experience. There is also a problem with screen bans. This problem is that the focus is on the device for the wrong reason. It’s the device that causes the time-wasting. It is engineered to have human beings spend as much time as possible staring at its screen. Does it have to be that way?

School technologists who try to defend devices need to let go of the devices, and focus on the learning that happens or does not happen on devices. Focus on the problems with devices and work to demand engineering-designed solutions. 

School technology’s job should not be to shape the student as the user of a device; as a field it could take the lead and demand that devices be purposefully engineered to educational uses.

Those pushing the screen bans should not focus on the time spent, but should focus on the aspects of devices that are detrimental, such as the built-in engineered addiction; the data-robbing; security; student safety, etc. They should demand these problems be addressed in design and engineering. If not, ban the device, the app, etc. until such time the problems are addressed by tech companies.

Those who defend devices using the notion that somehow teachers can miraculously monitor 30 to 35 student at once on 30-35 devices obviously comes from someone who has spent little time in demanding classroom environments. Even with technological solutions to try to address this, it is an ongoing arms race, after all, students are savvy and figure out how to get around them. Sure it can be done, but why does the engineering of the device make the job of using in education harder?

Educators are in a position where they can leverage better, safely engineered products for their classrooms. They only need to shift the mindset from trying to integrate the technology as it is, to demanding that tech companies engineer their products to fit the purpose of education.

Why School Leaders Need to Delete Their School and School District Social Media Accounts Immediately

Why School Leaders Need to Delete Their School and School District Social Media Accounts Immediately

It’s time. School leaders need to delete all their school and school district social media accounts. They need to erase their presence there entirely. And here’s why.

Social media once had the potential to allow school leaders to connect with their constituients in an easy-to-use communication medium. That changed when social media moved to algorithms that elevated the divisive and nonsense to an “easy-to-abuse” communication medium where trolls and the disgruntled could attack with emnity and without consequence. 

Social media is a place that values hostility and division not connection, so school leaders would do well to withdraw entirely by deleting their school and district accounts.

Now I realize, the Pro-social media evangelists would say that having an organizational presence there is vital, after all, people will be talking about your school or district there, so you need to have a positive presence there.

Nope, that’s not necessary. After all, I don’t see a scramble by the famous to have a postive presence in the National Enquirer to counter their nonsense. If it’s in the National Enquirer, everyone knows its Bull malarkey, so you leave it to its own merit. School leaders need to leave social media to its own merits too.

School leaders need to recognize that social media is the Twenty-first century National Enquirer. It’s a dumpster fire. They don’t need an organizational presence in a medium that values misinformation and sensational nonsense over truth. It doesn’t connect people; it divides them and gives people a megaphone who don’t really deserve one. If I were in a school leadership position today, I would close all social media accounts for my school immediately. They’re obsolete and no longer needed.

Instead, by closing all social media accounts, it forces anyone who needs to have true two-way conversation, not an engagement of the trolls, to use clearly sanctioned two-way communication channels such as phone calls, emails, letters, or even face to face meetings. Trolls don’t want honest solutions to problems anyway; they simply want to stir the pot and see what happens. 

Go ahead school leaders, delete your social media accounts today. They no longer serve the purpose they once did. After all, as GenAI gets going, its all going to be slop not worth reading anyway.

Durán's New Book "The Nerd Reich" Left Me in Awe and Anger at the Arrogance of Silicon Valley's Billionaires

Gil Durán’s book “The Nerd Reich” is a disruptive read, for it disturbs everything you have known and believed about ultra-tech wealthy in Silicon Valley. Big Tech has long sold themselves as the saviors of our society with their invented gadgets, but according to Durán, they are really much more interested in power and this is evident page after page.

Their agenda is clearly not an American agenda and is self-serving. This book maps out clearly how the Tech Broligarchy, now armed with their gazillions are making power moves that are not necessarily about bettering America, or the world; but about installing themselves as source of all power. It suggests that AI is the latest iteration of their power-grabbing.

One thing I kept thinking about during this book was the massive arrogance of the tech industry. They really do believe that are the saviors of humanity and the world, and in detail, Durán captures their religion. Yes, Silicon Valley has in many ways become a religion, and it is driving them to destroy our democratic government and install themselves in power, and they have the money and the influence to do it. What’s more, this book has a faint echo that suggests that we are implicated in their position, with our almost worshipful attitude toward them and their accomplishments. We have in some ways sacrificed ourselves to their priesthood on the altars of their devices.

Duràn writes:

“When a nation is betrayed by its wealthest citizens—men who believe their money and technology entitle them to rule—existential crisis follows. But the future remains unwritten, The next few years will determine the destiny of our nation, our species, and our planet. While the United States is currently the main project, tech fascism has global ambitions. All around the world, Silicon Valley oligarchs are scheming to acquire labd, resources, and power. They see a world in decline and seek to profit by hastening its collapse—and remaking it in their own image. Consider this a map of how we got here and a warning about the post-American authoritarian dystopia the billionaires of Silicon Valley are racing to build.”

This entire book makes the case on how these Silicon Valley billionaires are using their money and influence to rule just because they think they deserve to because of their tech accomplishments and money. This arrogance is evident on page after page, and by the time I reached the end, I almost wanted to sling all my technology into the yard. 

In the end, I am still digesting what Durán offers in this book. It’s just that disturbing. As I do, I will share more, but for now, I find myself stewing at the arrogance of the Tech Bros.

Screen Bans Should Be Embraced as an Opportunity to Think Outside the "Technology-Always-Has-The-Answer Box"

Screenbans in schools is an opportunity for Ed Tech and educators, not a threat.

Why? Because it is an opportunity to disrupt the tech-solutionism that has obsessed educators since the PC entered the classroom.

Tech-solutionist see technology as the "always-answer" to every problem.

This thinking places educators in a "Technology-Always-Has-The Answer" box where every problem has a tech solution. That turns into technology-obessiveness.

Despite what the Ed Tech marketers have promoted, they have not been promoting "thinking-out-of-box"; they have been promoting only thinking in their box. 

Screenban discussions and talk moves the thinking outside "technology-always-has-the-answer box” to a universe and world of options out there. Not every problem has a tech solution. 

Screenbans are disruptive of the Ed Tech status quo with its tech-solutionist answers. That’s the reason for their concerns.

Educators should take advantage of this time and de-center technology and place it among the other tools in the toolbox and reach for it when it solves a problem, not spend all their time looking for problems to solve with tech!

Ed Tech Does Not Always Have to Be Revolutionary: It Just Has to Work!

 Educators don’t always adopt Ed Tech to “revolutionize” or “change” anything. A tool doesn’t have to transform the work to be effective.

Sometimes you adopt a new technology to facilitate and help do what you are currently doing, not disrupt; not transform; not change anything.

The mistake often made by Ed Tech is thinking that their product must “revolutionize” or “transform” and that’s their marketing story.

The truth is, there are times when no change is needed other than having a tool that helps you do what you are doing better.

I suspect one of the reasons for the so-called “tech-lash” is because of promises of transformation that never panned out.

But the Ed Tech industry never blames their technologies. It’s always the implementation or the “system” that is rigid and unwilling to change. But, it just might be that the technology does not work, and in some cases it might be harmful.

Have you ever heard anyone in Ed Tech blame technology? I haven’t heard that that I recall. It’s never the technology’s fault.  It’s the system, the school, the leadership, the teacher, the student, the parent…never the technology.

But, just maybe, the Ed Tech is garbage. Maybe the company spent a ton of money dressing it up in expensive marketing clothes, and the actual product is junk. 

Ed Tech does not have to always be revolutionary or transformative. Sometimes it just has to help schools and teachers do what they’re doing better. That’s not as big a sell, but it is a solid product.

The Missing Component in Digital Literacy: Critical Examination of Consequences of Our Digital Technologies

When we speak of digital literacy in education, often that notion is about the construction of “good little users and consumers of technology.” Instead, what is needed is a digital literacy curriculum that expands into examining the greater societal and environmental impact of the choices we make in technologies.

In other words, most often, digital literacy accepts the technology as inevitable, and that we have no choice but become users. When our digital literacy efforts do this, they are simply serving up students as consumers for Silicon Valley tech companies. With that, we are complicit in increasing tech company power over us and our world.

A true digial literacy curriculum needs a strong critical component that carefully examines the consequences of our technological choices. For example, in dealing with AI literacy, there needs to be deliberate efforts to provide students with the ecological consequences of the massive energy and water consumption of the data centers needed to power it. With social media, there needs to be deliberate instruction on how social media has negatively impacted our society. With every technology in our lives, there needs to be critical thinking about the use of that technology. In other words, students must be equipped with critical knowledge that empowers them to decide for themselves whether they want to be users of that technology or not.

Ed Tech is solely responsible for this state of affairs. They have instilled within us that technology is inevitable and that it is always the answer to our problems. The job of Ed Tech in education has always been unquestioningly turning administrators, teachers, and students into users.

When digital literacy focuses on a critical examination of technologies and the consequences of their use, you do not have “good little users and consumers of tech”; you have empowered citizens who create a society that decides for themselves which technologies deserve a place in their lives.

Why Educators and School Leaders Should Be Skeptical with Anthropic's Free AI Access Offer and How to Protect Their Schools

Let’s call Anthropic’s “free” AI access offer for what it is…an effort to get teachers and schools hooked on their product like a drug pusher standing on the curb offering free trial samples. Well, maybe not, but it feels like it.

Obviously, once teachers have invested a great deal of time and data in the product, Anthropic is in total control. They control the technology-user relationship; they control the price; and they control the conditions of use. Schools and educators are in some ways really selling their educator souls!

The notion of being skeptical of anything offered for “free” applies here. Nothing is ever free for long. Absolutely nothing is free.

Anthropic is simply deferring that cost for later. School districts and educators who elect to partake will pay later for their “free” use.

Before having anything to do with Anthropic, I would consider this “free” offer carefully and anticipate expected costs once the system is hooked.

Also, educators and school leaders should demand answers to the following questions before even setting up an educator account:

1) How much can I expect to pay in the future for your product? I need to plan for anticipated costs before a commitment.

2) What happens to all the data that we invest in using your product? Will it be used for training models? Can we have a hard-clad contracted assurance that prevents this in the future?

3) You make no promises about being serious about student and teacher data security beyond quoting something about FERPA, to which you are NOT LEGALLY BOUND. So, what are you going to do to protect our data?

Those are the big questions school leaders should ask before taking Anthropic up on their “free” offer. Though I would say no thanks even before asking them.

Otherwise, school leaders should make sure they protect students’ data and school data by forbidding the upload by anyone in their districts to Anthropic’s product until answers are provided.

My ultimate fear is this is the usual Big Tech and Ed Tech sales tactic.

Get users invested and hooked first. Then you have total control of your users, both their access and price.

That’s not a wise way for school leaders to protect their students, staffs, and school resources. It is extremely short-sighted leadership and non-visionary.

That’s signing a blank check to Anthropic.

Stay away from Silicon Valley companies bearing gifts. It’s not a gift and it’s NOT FREE.

Using AI Is a Choice Not an Imperative: Knowing Why One Uses It or Not Is Important

If you examine closely any of the AI promotional posts here on LinkedIn or elsewhere, and the avalanche of AI educational books out of bookstores, one thing about AI and all this promotional hype becomes clear:

They are using AI to search for a problem to solve.

Why else do so many AI-promotional posts on LinkedIn begin with the words, “AI is not he problem, (Insert whatever is the problem) is the problem”? That is a dead give-away that the search is underway for a problem that Silicon Valley’s latest shiny toy can solve.

But, what if in my role as teacher, I am perfectly able to resolve my problems with tools already in my toolbox, or with cheap, non-technological solutions? 

Why should I use AI  when asking a friend for feedback on an email works? Do I use AI just to be able to say I used AI? That sounds like I am being faddish, not economical.

Why do I need to turn to technology for solutions as all of Ed Tech does?

Take writing. It can be done very effectively without technology at all. This writing, like all my writing, begins its existence as handwriting done with a pen on a page of paper. The pen and paper are perfect tools for writing. That’s what they were made for. Simple, useful tools for writing.

Writer Wendell Berry once wrote:

“If you are already solving your problem with the equipment  you have—a pencil, say—why solve it with something more expensive and more damaging? If you don’t have a problem, why pay for a solution? If you love the freedom and elegance of simple tools, why encumber yourself with something complicated?”

That’s it. That is the question at the heart about why I choose not to use AI tools. I already have tools to solve my problems. I choose not to use AI which is damaging the environment, a strain on natural resources, and has been created through human exploitation. It is clearly complicated.

I also love the “freedom and elegance of simple tools” that do not “encumber” me with the “complicated.” I can write anywhere with pen and paper. No need to connect to the internet or a power source. 

I write, I teach, I work fine with the tools I have. I have no need for an anthropomorphized, word-prediction algorithm to assist in what I do. I do not want to complicate what I do with technology just because it exists.

Right now, there are an awful lot of people whose future is staked on AI trying to convince the world that it can solve problems. They desperately search for problems it can solve. Their golden ticket demands it. Their every word is an exercise in searching for a solution for AI to solve.

Like Berry though, I relish the freedom and elegance of the simple tools. Perhaps that really should be the guiding force in Ed Tech: Look to the simple tools first. Instead of trying to justify the existence of a technology, really look for any solutions to solve problems.

As I live and work, why should I choose to enchain myself with the chains of complication wrought through using AI? There’s a reason why the old adage, “Keep it simple stupid!” is so well-worn.

What Is It with App and Software Developers? Offer a Garbage Product and Make Users Pay a Ransom to Get a Better Product? What Nonsense!

I deleted another app that has been on my Mac for well over 10 years. It is increasingly the story from software and app developers: They are arrogant and often could care less about what their customers actually want.

They start by offering a basically limited functional product and make customers pay for the features they need through additional costs in subscriptions. And in those subscriptions, they also make them pay for bloated features they did not want in the first place.

This arrogance is absolutely amazing! They really think they know better what their users want than their users.

What's more, they offer an initial garbage product, and force RANSOM PAYMENTS for those features the users want in the first place.

You can bet if the app offers a subscription model, they are probably engaging in this practice.

I have deleted two apps that I used for over ten years in recent days for this very reason. 

It seems Tech companies aren't about offering customers solutions anymore: They are about focusing on squeezing as much money out of customers possible through crappy products that can only be less crappy with more money.

When It Comes to AI and Screen Ban Arguments, School Leaders Shouldn't Accept the "It's-Just-a-Tool Argument": You Owe Your Students Much More

What should a school leader think about the brouhaha about screens and screen bans? One thing for sure, they should not allow Ed Tech and tech advocates justify them by using the “it’s just a tool argument.” That is just not true.

In education, the screen/device/app can be the problem. This is because it is much, much more than simply a “tool.” It is designed also for the purposes of those peddling it. 

Tech companies first and foremost have to have users, so in their design, they have to maximize user engagement. Once they have users, they want the users using their product. That’s attention capture.

None of this is a problem, except when getting users always engaged with your product is the main goal and other purposes take a back seat. Then, all design choices are not about utility; they become more about how eyeballs can be captured. That’s where addiction becomes the goal.

The metric becomes the amount of time the user is using the screen/device/app.

That’s where addictive tech design happens, and the screen/device/app becomes more than “just a tool.” It then becomes a distraction from other important aspects of life. Users spend inordinate amounts of time as users, and their behavior starts resembling drug addiction.

That’s what school leaders should be concerned about: the addictive design of screens/devices/apps and banning products or limiting student access to them becomes justified.

The school leaders responsibility lies, not with providing users for companies and eyeballs for their products, but with advocating and protecting their students from device purposes and designs that are not in their students’ best interests.

School leaders should not just dismiss the screen ban as something harmful for their students. They should embrace its discussion as a means to critically question all Ed Tech currently being used in their schools.

Perhaps school leaders should even engage in a Ed Tech audit in their schools by carefully and critically examining each and every screen/device/app in the building. 

-Look at the costs. 

-Assess the results and outcomes of use. 

-Examine each for addictive design features. 

-Carefully study how teachers, students, and staff are using them.

In the end, what school leaders should want to “ban” from their schools are two things: 

1) Uncritical acceptance of all technological solutions. Do extensive homework on your own and do not always rely on what Ed Tech vendors tell you.

2) Screens/Devices/Apps that are more interested in capturing users and attention instead of providing a product that works.

School leaders are in a position to take control of the screen ban efforts by using it to critically purge tech that is not in the interests of their students, and they can make sure companies are more interested in providing learning and teaching tools than addiction machines.

In Your Work, Your Leadership, Are You an Exploiter or Nurturer? Your Life, Livelihood Makes It Clear

When it comes to your leadership, your livelihood activity, are you an “exploiter” or a “nurturer”?

In his essay “The Unsettling of America” Wendell Berry writes about these two “kinds of mind” and thinking about them in terms of our current culture of technological and economic obsession is interesting. According to Berry:

Exploiters are specialists, experts. The nurturer is not. They acknowledge their limited knowing.

The exploiter’s standard is efficiency. The nurturer’s standard is care.

The exploiter’s goal is money, profit. The nurturer’s goal is health—the land’s, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s.

Exploiters ask how quickly and how much can the land be made to produce; nurturers ask what is the land’s capacity? How much can it be asked to do without diminishing it?

Exploiters want to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer wants to work as well as possible. For them, efficiency can be sacrificed for good.

The exploiter believes in organization, establishment; the nurturer has faith in human order.

The exploiter serves institutions, organization; the nurturer serves the land, household, community, place.

The exploiter thinks of numbers, quantities, hard facts; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.

Which describes the current EdTech industry and consulting industry? Which captures Big Tech today?

I think it is clear where the AI industry falls here, especially in light of their Data Center projects and the obsession with efficiency. Big tech is more exploiter than nurturer.

Exploiters care more about things and worship efficiency at all costs. Sound familiar? Nurturers care more about life, humanity, people, and well-being.

Your “kind of mind” is betrayed by you you engage in your livelihood and that which you do and advocate for. 

School Leadership Mistake in the 2000s? Evaluating Teachers in Teaching with Technology

The mistake made in 2000s was a school leadership-driven imposition of technology on teachers. 

The mistake was requiring teachers to “demonstrate that they were teaching with technology” in the doctrinally-dictated manner prescribed by EdTech and their so-called experts.

Technology should never have been imposed upon teachers.

It should have never appeared any where in standards for teacher evaluations.

School administrators should have never engaged in so-called policing operations called “classroom walk-throughs” in order to ensure compliance with so-called “teaching with technology.”

This is because technology is simply a tool. The teacher and students should be in charge of whether or not that tool is used.

Technology use by teachers or students should never be a standard or an outcome; it simply should be there if the teacher chooses to use it, and if it is needed.

By imposing technology on teachers and students, perhaps that is why we are now in the era of screen-bans. This is because the emphasis in the 2000s was not teaching and learning or even curriculum, even though the EdTech boosters said it was. It was technology.

The emphasis in the 2000s by EdTech and over-enthusiastic school leaders was THE TECHNOLOGY. It was placed central to learning, and now we know that was the mistake. That’s why there are pressures to take away the tech toys.

Now, AI boosters and educators trying to make a living and careers on a new technology are making the EXACT SAME MISTAKE.

They are putting their shiny new toy, artificial intelligence, ahead of students, ahead of teachers, ahead of curriculum.

These individuals are dumping curriculum and sacrificing everything just to get this new technology an exalted place in the educational institutions.

The end result will be that in 10 to 20 years, we once again will have sacrificed everything in education to exalt another technology.

The sensible thing for school leaders at this point is not to jump on the AI bandwagon fad with both feet. The sensible thing is demand all these individuals to back off.

There is no place in teaching standards, learning standards, or any educational standards for anything AI. Teaching AI is shortsighted and plain educational malpractice.

It is just a tool, that’s it. If it has a legitimate use in education, educators will use it.

If we impose AI on educators, on students, and on curriculum, it will simply be a checkbox, a hoop to jump through, and any use of the technology will be inauthentic and bizarre.

For school leaders, there’s no need to elevate a technology to a place beyond an item in the teaching and learning tool list.

It's the Teacher That Matters Most in Teaching and Learning, Not Screens, Not AI...That's The Lesson Needed for School Leaders in All These Screen Ban Efforts

How can I transform teaching and learning to accommodate or integrate AI? THAT is the WRONG question.

The correct question is, if it follows that AI is actually another tool to be used in education should be: How can AI (or any tool) help teachers engage in better teaching and students engage in better learning?

The history of Ed Tech says we asked the wrong questions when the PC, Web 2.0., and social media came along. Then, we asked how can I use these tools to transform and revolutionize, rather than how can these tools be used to facilitate? To equip?

Perhaps that's why Ed Tech and the technology cheerleaders are desperately trying to defend all the technologies it has introduced in education. 

Educators are susceptible to the “glimmer of gadgets” and have been for some time. Instead of asking the facilitating question, they sometimes look to the technologies for salvation, and the result is the present. Now, with little evidence to support a dramatic revolution in teaching and learning, important critical questions are being asked about the rightful place of technologies—screens if you want to call them—in the classroom.

We know how students learn and we have a repetoire of teaching methods at our disposal, and much of the research shows that what makes learning happen is WHAT A GOOD TEACHER DOES WITH THE STUDENTS DURING THE TIME THEY ARE IN HER/HIS CLASSROOM. It is really that simple. 

Yet, instead of looking to the one single individual who has the potential impact on learning the most, we get tangled in our devices, or fanciful technologies if you will, and we forget the teacher. 

I remember the minor debate in my schooling as a student when calculators appeared, (Yes I am that old.), but I don’t recall the raging enthusiasm to transform teaching and learning through the magical powers of the Texas Instrument calculator. It was seen as simply a machine, not a mechanistic path to save education, and we used it when it was useful and did not use it when our teachers determined that it was not useful and an obstacle to what they were teaching and what we were learning.

AI, if it is simply a tool, then let’s kick the pedestal out from under it,  toss out all the hype, and lets just see if it really can help teachers teach and students learn. That has yet to be truly determined, in spite of the mad search for evidence to justify AI existence in the classroom rather than trying to see if teaching and learning improve.

And that is another issue as well, for the AI enthusiasts want their new shiny device so badly to be the salvation in the classroom, that they won’t give it time to demonstrate whether it will be useful or not. 

Generative AI has not been around for more than a few years, and every opportunist under the sun is peddling it as the answer for all our problems, especially those in education. And, if anyone expresses concerns over its issues and problems, they are bombarded with promotional hype and labels of being a Luddite.

If I were to provide some experiential advice to all educators and especially educational leaders, stop listening to the AI cheerleading, and let’s settle down and see if this new technology offers teachers anything to enhance their teaching and students anything to enhance their learning.

Stop looking to technology to transform education. Stop looking for an invention that will somehow make learning happen. We know already what will make learning happen, and that is a well-trained, experienced teacher in the classroom equipped not with the fads of the day, but with she or he says they need to educate students.

Ultimately, let’s remember this: It’s the teacher stupid, that ultimately matters, not the gadgets!

What's Wrong When a CEO Says He's Replacing 'Lower Value Human' Capital with AI? What a Perfect Example of an Awful Leader

 Bill Winters, a bank CEO said during a investment leaders summit in November of 2025, that he was replacing "lower value human capital" with AI.  (StanChart CEO Seeks to Reassure Staff Over 'Lower Value Human Capital' Comment from Reuters)

Think about that statement and what it says about the leader who says it. He has little value for humanity other than that which makes him and his shareholders more money.

This is an example of the worst kind of leader, and the worst kind of human being. The lesson to be learned is this instance? Don't follow this person anywhere!

What makes this problematic for me is that during my entire career in educational leadership, university schools of administration and school systems often turned to business and corporate leaders for models on how they should lead their organizations. We were even assigned in some cases books written by "successful CEOs."

But this incident should give any school leader pause before listening to a CEO boast about their leadership skills. It should also make one question whether anything a CEO tells you about leading a their companies can help in leading a school or district.

I have always thought that business/corporate leadership and school leadership are based on entirely different value systems, and this makes the two quite different. After reading about this incident, because the CEO is so blatantly anti-human, I am more than ever convinced that anything a CEO tells you about leadership needs to be viewed with heavy criticism and skepticism. 

I realize that the CEO said his quote was taken out of context, but that does not fly with me. The use of the "LOWER VALUE HUMAN CAPITAL" cannot ever be smoothed over by reframing and damage control. It is a clear indication of where this CEO's value system is, and sadly, he shouldn't even be granted the label of leader.

Certainly not all CEOs have these values, but this story is a powerful example of bad leadership and a model of a bad leader. 

Leadership Experts and Consultants Everywhere and How to Avoid Being Scammed By Them

 "Want to be an expert on leadership? You could get training and exposure to the relevant research literature, but it's not necessary. If you are persuasive enough, articulate enough, or attractive enough, if your have an interesting enough, uplifting story of some combination of these traits, you are or can be a very successful leadership blogger, speaker, and consultant--whether or not you have ever read, let alone contributed to, any of the relevant social science on the topic." p. ix, Jeffrey PFeffer, Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time

One thing that is more commonly found than a qualified teacher is a leadership consultant or expert. My own work inbox explodes every day with emails from some expert offering to make me and the other administrators in my organization the greatest leaders in our field. They advertise all manner of "keynotes" who have cracked the code of leadership excellence, and by just hearing their words, I will find my own leadership transformed they promise. But has anyone every really seen any data and evidence presented that shows that attending their conference delivers as promised? Probably not, if you set aside their anecdotal evidence.

Today, in the education field, if you want to be a "leadership expert" you really don't have to know a thing about leadership. If you are convincing, articulate, and looks help, you can open that leadership consulting business and make more money and be your own boss. It helps to also have a litany of inspiring stories, humor, and some overall "operational leadership model scheme" and you are on your way as a leadership guru.

But Pfeffer also points out in his book Leadership BS that "the leadership industry...has its quacks and sham artists who sell promises and stories, some true, some not, but all of them inspirational and comfortable" (p. x, Pfeffer, 2015). What is worse, there is very little "follow-up" research to see what really works and what doesn't.

I propose that the next time one of these leadership consultants sends you an email, send them one back stating: "I tell you what, I will listen to your sales pitch IF you can send me independently verified data and evidence (no anecdotal stories permitted) of how successful your services are. Or, if they dare call you, stop them mid-sales pitch and ask them if they have independently verified, supportive data (again not anecdotal stories or references). I have done this, and nothing makes these peddlers of leadership coaching services clam up faster when you ask. Most of them have not really taken the time to independently study the leadership wares they're selling.

What if we as educational leaders were able to establish our own version of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) whose task would be to test and analyze the claims of these leadership gurus and determine whether they really do produce the results claimed? Of course that is a dream unlikely to happen, but it be a means to dispense with much of the leadership consultant quackery.

The bottom line is that it is our role to be critical. I am not dazzled by individuals who brag about how many TED Talks they've done; how many books they've published; or even jobs they've once held. That is not evidence of efficacy of their consultant product. In the end, ask tough questions before you spend anything on these leadership products. Demand data and evidence and question their "success stories." If their consultancy can't stand the critical scrutiny, then spend your money wisely elsewhere.

Shouldn't Real Leaders Invite Criticism of Their Ideas for Improvement Rather Than Jump to Buy-In?

John Ralston Saul’s book, Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, captures so well a “postmodern-postructural” idea about Ed Leadership as a field of “expertise” that I’ve been entertaining lately. That idea is how much of the time educational leadership, and even business leadership, silences critics, critique or criticism. In other words, all these guru models of reform talk more about “getting stake-holder buy-in” and “marketing the ideas or reforms” rather than actually inviting Criticism. I think Saul captures the real reason why this is so very well when he writes:

“Nothing frightens those in authority so much as criticism. Whether democrats or dictators, they are unable to accept that criticism is the most constructive tool available to any society because it is the best way to prevent error” (Saul, 1992, p. 8).

Education leaders like business leaders often run from and suppress criticism and the critic of their ideas for reform and improvement. They too easily dismiss objections and criticism as simply resistance. Could it not be that such resistance is valid?  

Instead they engage in “stakeholder-buy-in” as if their idea, programs, reforms, projects, etc. are inherently the best approach to solving the problem at hand. Because of this fear of the critic, critique, and criticism, most often evidenced by the silencing of critics, these leaders make the same errors and perpetuate the well-known pendulum swings in education due to the failure to allow critique and criticism of their agendas. As Saul points out, “criticism is the most constructive tool available” because it is the best way to "prevent error.” 

To prevent the massive waste of time and resources that often comes with these faddish waves of reform that hit education, there needs to much more space to allow for criticism. That’s why a critical educational leadership studies needs to be activated.

Before implementing any new programs, ideas, reforms…why not open a large space for criticism first? Real leaders don’t fear criticism, they invite it.

Saul’s arguments and prose against an unquestioned faith in Western rationality and reason are important for having intellectual leadership in education.

Saul, J. R. (1992). Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. Simon and Schuster: New York, NY.