Skip to main content

Audrey Watters: The Most Important Post of the Decade: The 100 Worst EdTech Disasters of the Decade

I just opened my email and discovered this brilliant post by Audrey Watters, whose voice on EdTech is indispensable.

Watters lists the 100 biggest EdTech debacles of the past decade, and seeing them all in one place is astonishing.

What strikes me is the combination of unadulterated arrogance (i.e., chutzpah), coupled with repeated failures.

What is also impressive are the number of entries that were hailed by the media or by assorted journalists, then slipped quietly down the drain, without impairing the reputation of the huckster who took the money and ran.

Again and again, we encounter EdTech start-ups and innovations that are greeted with wild acclaim and hype, but whose collapse is ignored as the parade moves on to the next overpromised miracle technology.

Whatever happened to the promise that half of all courses in school would be taught online by this year (false) or that most colleges and universities would die because of the rise of the MOOC? Why do virtual charter schools make money even though they have horrible outcomes for students?

This post is stuffed with flash-in-the-pan technological disruptions that planned to “revolutionize” education, from K-12 through higher education.

Please read it. Share it with your friends and colleagues.

Lessons: Learn humility. Believe in the power of human beings, not machines designed to replace them. Don’t let them sell you stuff designed to control the brains, emotions, and social development of students. Be wary. Be skeptical. Protect your privacy and the privacy of children.

Protect your intellectual freedom.

Read Audrey Watters.

 

 

 

 



Udimi - Buy Solo Ads from Diane Ravitch's blog https://ift.tt/36eCDK2
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tips and Strategies for Remote Learning (March 2020)

For the past four weeks, starting two weeks before our Spring Break last week, teachers, administrators and staff at our school have been preparing for “remote school” for students as a result of the coronavirus / COVID-19 crisis. On March 19, 2020, our Head of School sent out a letter to our parents including information about our remote learning plans and FAQs for parents . If your school is currently preparing for remote learning ( as all Oklahoma public school districts now appear to be , pending tomorrow’s state school board meeting vote) I encourage you to review these publicly shared documents and information. As our school’s “Technology Integration and Innovation Specialist” this year, I’ve been building an instructional site for our teachers to support remote learning, on support.casady.org , which is openly licensed CC-BY . This collaborative effort with many other teachers and members of our school staff has provided a good opportunity to curate as well as present instruc...
Post a Comment
Read more

5 Tips for Embracing Outdoor Learning in Any Setting

In a year when all schools look different from usual, some teachers are embracing the outdoors as their classroom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention included outdoor learning in recommended strategies for schools to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and research has shown positive instructional outcomes from such methods. Long-time outdoor educators also tout the social and emotional benefits . But getting started can feel daunting. Below are five tips from experienced teachers for trying outdoor learning in any setting. Look for possibilities in different spaces Becky Schnekser is teaching K-5 science fully outdoors this year at a private school in Virginia Beach. She has the advantage of a well developed outdoor classroom, but that’s not a prerequisite. “Any outdoor space is an opportunity, whether you have a beautiful wooded area or you have concrete jungle,” she said. From sidewalk math to history walks to socially distanced singing , educators are finding wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Guidance on Accreditation for Governing Boards

With accreditation under intensified scrutiny from state legislators and other quarters, two national associations have issued a joint statement reminding governing boards of the importance of higher education’s quality assurance system and the role they should play in it. The Joint Advisory Statement on Accreditation & Governing Boards 2022 , from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, refreshes a 2009 statement the two groups issued at another time when accreditation had taken heat, then from the Bush administration’s Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education. More recently, legislators in Florida have proposed legislation that would require colleges to regularly change accreditors and give them the right to sue accreditors that take regulatory action against them. The Florida measure came in response to an accrediting agency’s inquiry into external influences over governance at two ...
Post a Comment
Read more