The Label "Smart" Device Might Not Be a Good Thing: Read Jathan Sadowski's "Too Smart"

 Here is a book to add to your critical Edtech and critical thinking about technology list, even though it goes back a bit to 2020.

"Too Smart: How Digital Capitalism Is Extracting Data, Controlling Our Lives, and Taking Over the World" By Jathan Sadowski

Sadowski takes you through a critical overview of how companies are purposefully making their products "smart" products in order to facilitate data extraction for exploitation purposes. 

When a device is labeled "smart" you can bet it is gathering data about you and not always for your benefit. 

• Free consumer apps companies use this data to sell. 
• Insurance companies use this data against you in their pricing schemes and to manipulate you in your driving habits.
• Government entities use it in their surveillance activities.

After reading this book, when a salesperson touts that a TV or a dryer is a "smart" device, you will not automatically see that as a plus. You will know that it is more of a tactic of exploitation at best and manipulation at the worst.

A lot of money has been spent on convincing us as consumers that the quality of being "smart" is a good thing for our devices. It is not.

Sadowski even suggests ideas of how to disrupt and avoid all this, from turning off these features or anything related to them to the idea of purposefully sabotaging the whole smart enterprise.

There is a lot to be said about shading parts of your life out of reach of Big Tech. 

EdTech Consultants and Some Educators Suffer from the Borg Complex: They See Resistance to All Technologies as Futile

I think I have found an effective diagnosis of the condition currently suffered by EdTech consultants and evangelists who can't help slobbering over AI: it is called the "Borg Complex."

The Borg Complex is described in an article entitled "Borg Complex: A Primer" in 2013 by L.M. Sacasas.

These EdTech AI boosters suffer from Borg Complex because they "explicitly assert or implicitly assume that resistance to technology is futile. The Borg is a cybernetic alien race in the Star Trek Universe that tells their victims that they will assimilate them biologically and technologically into their own and that "Resistance Is Futile."

Our EdTech consultants and boosters tell us educators that we might as well adopt AI because its here. In other words, "Resistance is futile." 

They might also exhibit some of the other symptoms as well:

For example, in this article, 

Symptom 1: "Makes grandiose, but unsupported claims for technology." How often have we heard that "AI is a gamechanger" or that it is "revolutionizing education" with absolutely NO support? 

Symptom 3: "Pays lip service to, but ultimately dismisses genuine concerns." This is repeatedly done when they are presented with new research that points to cognitive outsourcing issues, or when the environmental costs of all these AI server farms are mentioned.

Symptom 4: "Equates resistance or caution to reactionary nostalgia." If you resist AI, you are simply clinging to old inefficient, unproductive ways.

And Symptom 8: "Refers to historical antecedents to solely dismiss present concerns." How many times have I heard an AI booster nostalgically call resistance to AI like the resistance to calculators when introduced.

Borg Complex Rhetoric is designed to short-circuit any critical thought and critical examination of AI. 

Don't Fall for the "AI Leadership" Rhetoric: Be a Leader Who Thinks First

"Technology was the new religion of the people. There was the sense that there was no problem that technology could not solve." Carl Benedikt Frey, "The Technology Trap"

One major truth about AI...solutionism is very much alive. The belief that technology has all our answers to all our problems is seen in so much of the "promo-rhetoric" around this technology.

We learning nothing from the past because we have blinded ourselves from any views backward, for if we look there, we see that very often, the technologies we develop to solve our problems, sometimes solve their intended targets, but with them, come a host of unintended and "unforeseen" consequences. (Could it be this "unforeseenness is related to the blinders we wear towards the past?) For every tech solution, if you use the lens of history, there are always less than desirable and sometimes catastrophic consequences.

By wearing the lenses of solutionism, leaders are blind to the possibility that the most expedient solution is sometimes not technological, and that there just might be an answer that does not require computer chips and screens.

AI offers some benefits, not doubt, but to religiously and fanatically claim that it will cure a host of our ills, without providing any solid evidence is cultish. That has never ended well for those who unquestioningly follow these individuals.

Instead, THINK...think for yourself. Do not simply accept the latest prognostifications from some tech enthusiast who really has a financial interest in selling your that product, AI products included.

Leading means thinking critically and not always falling immediately for the false promises of solutionistic rhetoric.

Living Leadership Deliberately and Ethically: Focusing on What Really Should Matter

 "I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing....The principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that the corporations may be enriched." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In this statement from Henry David Thoreau's Walden, the author questions whether our "factory system" of production is the best means to provide clothing for people. As he points out, the factory has an unquestionable objective or purpose, which is to "make money and enrich its owners." Its objective is not to see that individuals are "well and honestly clad." In other words, by its existence, the factory is not concerned with how well, functionally or comfortably, individuals are dressed; it seeks to make money. 

Now, that certainly doesn't mean that factories or businesses can't have two purposes. It could seek both profitability and the good of its consumers, but Thoreau points to that, inevitably, the factory has to sometimes decide which object or purpose is primary, and sadly, too often, we live in a world where material advantages outweigh the good of individuals or even society.

Educational leaders face this ethical choice every day, and even make choices sometimes unconsciously. They weigh the "good of the institution" with its sole purpose being survival against what it actually delivers of value to its students, teachers, and staff. In these instances, "Survival of the Institution" reigns supreme when leaders make decisions that try to preserve the educational system, school or even university, and ignore the needs of its constituents, or even take actions detrimental to those individuals. For example, when a new initiative, new program is to be implemented, the consequential effects of that endeavor can be easily ignored or cast aside if it is seen to support the primary objective of an institution of self-preservation. In this situation, it may even implement at the expense of one of its constituent groups or individuals. In the modern school, these decisions are sometimes made at the expense of a student.

All this raises an important question for me: To what purpose or objective does my institution align itself to? Can I ethically accept and work and live according to that in my own journey of living deliberately as a leader? 

Ultimately, as a leader, you won't find answers to these questions in mission statements. The answers to these questions are found in what your organization does on a daily basis. Actions speak louder than words, and the actions of a school system, school or institution of higher education can erase any carefully constructed mission statement. I choose to "live deliberately every day as a leader" and that sometimes mean I am a "thorn in the side" or even that scratching sound on the chalkboard." I do not live by mission statements, because they can be easily be manipulate, twisted or ignored. I try to live deliberately by making each day count.

Beware the AI Hype in Education: Let's Be Critical

 "Stop thinking about what technology does and start thinking about who technology does it to and who it does it for." Cory Doctorow,  The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation

The latest "AI craze" has hit public schools. Educators have begun singing the chorus of praise for artificial intelligence and its promise of improving education. Have we not learned anything from the destruction that social media has wrought upon our society? It's promises of "connecting people" has been false, as it has only accelerated division and hate among people. The promise of "personalizing learning through technology" has equally proven false as achievement has gone nowhere as schools pushed to place technology in the hands of every student. The educational hype over Artificial Intelligence or AI sounds like a bad rerun from an old TV show, and I, for one, can't help but say, "Here we go again!"

Has any educator brain enough to begin asking the question "Who technology does it to and who it does it for?" in regards to AI or artificial intelligence technologies? To me, the first half of this question is asking "What are the consequences of adopting AI?" Instead of accepting the industry's notion of "inevitability of the technology" are we asking what overall adoption of AI is going to do to people? Not at all. We simply uncritically accept that AI is a good thing. That is a recipe of future disaster.

Educational leaders do not need to uncritically accept the promises of the tech industries when it comes to AI. We need to be asking critical questions about what these technologies do to people, and who is likely to benefit most from all the hype. In the end, it might not be the students; it is likely to be big tech companies and its evangelists who have led us down this path of false promises before.

A Dissertation Narrative: What's the Real Purpose for Pursuit of the Doctoral Degree?

Even some college professors in Educational Leadership Departments view everything people do through the lenses of Business and Utilitarian perspectives. I am reminded of this when I recall an event before I completed my doctorate, where one of my professors asked, "What is your dissertation about?" At that time I did not have a title, but told him that I was doing a historical some kind critique of using value-added measures to determine teacher quality. I was not really sure what I was doing anyway. After all, my doctoral experience was a journey of traveling down false paths and backtracking, not a linear journey from A, the beginning to Z destination. I allowed my reading and thinking to guide me. His immediate reaction? "What the hell are you going to do with that?" Obviously his question was well-intended, but it betrays the business-minded cultural underpinnings of an Ed Leadership program. He had in mind a linear process that ultimately would lead to some kind of fulfillment of personal ambition.

The dissertation experience in his eyes should have been about the utilitarian purpose of promoting career and future business prospects, not genuinely trying to add knowledge to the field, following where curiosity leads, or trying to call attention to an educational practice through critique. I am afraid that such thinking as this professor demonstrated is really indicative of how many educational leadership professors think in administration programs. You earn the degree to further your career. Sure, this is part of the reason. In my case, however, as I read and explored and read some more and explored, the ultimate product of the end my dissertation journey was the only possible outcome.

Several years out from graduation, I can really appreciate the experience, and not entirely for its potential to advance career or ambition. For now, through the doctoral process and through the act of wrestling with a dissertation, I know that I think more deeply and critically. My reading has broadened enormously as evidenced by my own library. But most of all, I exist in a field that is in need of individuals willing to live and do the work, but also be willing to ask difficult questions. I don't denigrate those who pursue higher education degrees entirely through professional ambition. That's as good a reason as any. But I also will always value both the journey and the product I produced at the end of the doctoral process. It's existence changed me forever.

The Need to Be Skeptical and Critical of STEM Education and Business Demands for Certain Kinds of Graduates

"...it was in the 1990s that shop class started to become a thing of the past, as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers.'" Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft

I recently read Matthew B. Crawford's book Shop Class as Soulcraft, which I highly recommend for all educators. This quote from the beginning of the book captured my attention immediately because the book as a whole outlines an important mindset educators have been neglecting when it comes to thinking about the kinds of graduates we should be producing. The prevailing thinking today is that public education's job is to produce the kinds of workers that business and industry currently demands. To me that is shortsighted and a disservice to our students and society.

The education system has taken on the role of distributing people in the niches needed by business and industry. In the case described by Crawford, when business calls for "knowledge workers," the system reacts and cuts funding of some programs and distributes students into the chosen learning niches of business and industry. The problem with the education system reacting in this manner, is that they place students in niches that might be short-lived due to business and industry's concerns with short-term profits and benefits. 

Business and industry rarely has only the long-term interests of students and people in general in mind. Hence, the evidence of this is their decisions to move entire production lines overseas or to lay workers off for the sake of short-term stock benefit. Education systems that purely have their students' interests in mind will look with a skeptical eye towards the kinds of workers called for from the private sector. It does not mean that the system ignores them entirely, but educators need to remember that the way business ideology is currently constructed in the United States especially, is more libertarian and tilted toward the idea that what is best for them is what is best for everybody. A quick glance at history immediately dispels this illusion. Maybe instead of shoving students into the STEM niche, we need a broader consideration of their potentials and interests. Niche-learning limits possibilities rather than increases them despite what the pro-business and STEM evangelists would have us believe.

Educators need to be critical and skeptical of claims made by politicians regarding what kinds of graduates are needed. We can certainly listen, but we also need to remember that they are obligated by current economic and business ideology to look after themselves. Shoving every student into some STEM approach to education or making sure every student can program might not be in some students' best interest. As Matthew Crawford laments in his book, the decline of shop class to produce so-called 21st century workers might not be the best course for our students. We are still going to need shop mechanics, bricklayers, carpenters, and other trades, and there can be great satisfaction in doing this work as a life-long career. We are also going to need writers, artists, musicians. Let's remember that programs like STEM education and other initiatives can place limits on students' futures rather than possibilities.

Educational Leaders, Marketing Language, Deception and Integrity: Critical Thinking Instead of Deception

Since I began blogging a few years back, I've always eschewed all these offers from companies and individuals for "branded content" to post here. I could have perhaps made much more money from blogging. The pennies one receives from allowing ads alone hardly amount to any kind of income. I'm even embarrassed to admit how little I've made in this area, but not really.

Accepting offers from companies to post their self-promoting branded content seems to me a violation of sorts. If one expresses one's thoughts honestly and with integrity, by allowing some company to provide a guest post is simply an exchange of that honesty and integrity for money, and that is not something I have done here. As Franklin Foer accurately captures:

"Advertisers will pay a premium for branded content, because its stands such a good chance of confusing the readers into clicking." (p. 151).

Foer's words capture an insidious side of the web, educators for some reason fail to acknowledge sometimes. It is often of place where deceiving others is an accepted practice. It's like the old athlete ads on TV where a popular athlete holds up a box of Wheaties and at least gives the impression that he faithfully eats the cereal each morning and it has something to do with his athletic prowess and ability. The web's advertising and these requests for "guest blog posts" are of the same deceptive practices. It's all a "little lie" but it is told for a greater good is the thought rationale behind these tactics.

I argue that educators and educational leaders who have integrity and principles refuse to engage in these kinds of techno-deceptions. They don't ask prominent other educators to endorse their products nor their persons. They certainly do not engage in deception. Educators are very fond of using the marketing language in every new program that comes along.

Everyone time some new initiative is undertaken, there's always talk about creating "vision statements" and "empowering stakeholders" and getting "buy-in." But what if that which your selling is just a bad idea, a horrible product, or even a waste of time? Just because you believe what your selling, doesn't automatically assume everyone should. As I've written many times, there's just not enough critical-minded educators who criticize these ideas. That is at the heart of why I could care less whether I make money on this blog, and I am certainly not motivated to post someone's "branded content."

Accepting branded content or promoting your colleagues latest consulting business may make you money and perhaps keep a friend, but to promote someone else's product or ideas without really having a personal experience with them is just plain wrong. Educators must learn to engage in critique and also be willing to accept critique instead of always being so obsessed with "buy-in" and "vision statements."

 Foer, F. (2017).  World without mind: The existential threat of big tech. Penguin; New York, NY.

Beware of All the Education 'Snake-Oil' Salesmen

Today, I received another one of those sales-pitch emails from some company using deceptive tactics to promote their products. They made it appear in their email that my failure to complete their survey would have some kind of consequences. I marked their email "Spam" and simply replied:

"I am not sure it is good practices to give potential customers "deadlines." Your email deceptively makes it appear I have to answer. I am not interested in your deadlines nor your products."

Their reply was to simply say that they would take me off their mailing list. I can't help but wonder how I ended up on their list in the first place. But, nonetheless, that is a prudent action on their part, because I honestly would never purchase a product from a company that has to resort to deceptive tactics to sell its wares.

I can't help but wonder how many millions of precious educational dollars are wasted to companies like this who make big promises and deliver nothing. Educational leaders need to realize they do not owe these companies nor their salespeople anything. Maybe the best educational practice in these times is simply to discard and ignore any unsolicited sales pitches.