Exploring Audrey Watters website and blog has taken me down many rabbit holes. Her work is layered with connected ideas that it is easy to spend a whole week exploring it. I appreciate her skepticism. I feel that I am often consumed with the same concerns about how technology is influencing education and our society. The EdTech industry is a capitalistic enterprise that deserves to be scrutinized for their motives and end results. I see people jump on board the next big thing in technology without thinking about the downsides or hidden costs associated with it. We forget that if something is free of monetary costs, there is still a different kind of cost. Companies are not giving away their product with no benefit to themselves. And regardless of the inventor/investors intent in developing a new technology, there are always unintended consequences. Youtube's algorithms were trying to find videos that best fit the viewer but they ended up helping fringe ideas spread and radicalization to fester.
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| By John Tenniel - Alice in Wonderland, Illustrator: Tenniell 1st Russian Edition, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=629690 "But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you ca'n't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." ~Alice in Wonderland
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School systems often buy into the next big technological advance because it is marketed as the great panacea of our educational systemic problems. The promises aren't fulfilled because the tech tool is just a continuation of the inequities that are already plaguing our schools. It might look fancy and futuristic, but EdTech tools ends up reinforcing the divide between socio economics, gender, and race. This is mainly because the normal way of educating kids doesn't change even if the tools look different. It helps gloss over inherent problems rather than bring about the equalization that most technologists claim to champion.
Historically there has been a clash of ideas in education that I summarize as Skinner vs Dewey. Should we use behaviorism to train our students to behave a different way or should we have students learn based on their interests and have them construct meaning through experience? I lean towards Dewey. I don't want my students to be robots, doing and learning things just because they receive an extrinsic reward from me. The high levels of investment in tutor programs in 2018 is troubling to me for this reason. It appears that some tech companies are following the behaviorism route, programming students to perform well on tests and worrying about training the future workforce rather than cultivating intellectual citizens who are critical thinkers. Are students going to have a chip in their head to download programming in the future?
The one area that I disagree with Audrey Watters is when she denounces the idea of social emotional learning. She is very skeptical of the benefits of teaching mindfulness, mindsets, grit, etc. Although I really appreciate her critique of the companies that market curriculum of these ideas, I truly believe these ideas are important. They are about being able to navigate the world regardless of your background. They help build a stronger foundation for students so that they can build their knowledge on top. I believe there is strong evidence to support them too. I do think that the educational textbook and curriculum industry don't always do a good job of creating products that are true to science.
I think that it is rather important to have someone who constantly is questioning how different things affect the education system and learning in particular. I appreciate that Audrey Watters is doing this work. It will help point out the blind spots that we have when it comes to using technology with students. But I also want to keep my focus on the bright spots that technology can bring to my students. They can be connected the world and their community. It can give them a voice, let them explore new ideas, and help create a new future. As educators we need to have a balanced view of the EdTech industry and seek out the good while protecting against the bad. But we need to do a better job of acknowledging the darkside so that we can fix it. We owe it to our students.
Historically there has been a clash of ideas in education that I summarize as Skinner vs Dewey. Should we use behaviorism to train our students to behave a different way or should we have students learn based on their interests and have them construct meaning through experience? I lean towards Dewey. I don't want my students to be robots, doing and learning things just because they receive an extrinsic reward from me. The high levels of investment in tutor programs in 2018 is troubling to me for this reason. It appears that some tech companies are following the behaviorism route, programming students to perform well on tests and worrying about training the future workforce rather than cultivating intellectual citizens who are critical thinkers. Are students going to have a chip in their head to download programming in the future?
The one area that I disagree with Audrey Watters is when she denounces the idea of social emotional learning. She is very skeptical of the benefits of teaching mindfulness, mindsets, grit, etc. Although I really appreciate her critique of the companies that market curriculum of these ideas, I truly believe these ideas are important. They are about being able to navigate the world regardless of your background. They help build a stronger foundation for students so that they can build their knowledge on top. I believe there is strong evidence to support them too. I do think that the educational textbook and curriculum industry don't always do a good job of creating products that are true to science.
I think that it is rather important to have someone who constantly is questioning how different things affect the education system and learning in particular. I appreciate that Audrey Watters is doing this work. It will help point out the blind spots that we have when it comes to using technology with students. But I also want to keep my focus on the bright spots that technology can bring to my students. They can be connected the world and their community. It can give them a voice, let them explore new ideas, and help create a new future. As educators we need to have a balanced view of the EdTech industry and seek out the good while protecting against the bad. But we need to do a better job of acknowledging the darkside so that we can fix it. We owe it to our students.
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