The holy grail for corporate reformers is cost-cutting that produces profits. Their hope is that if schools replace teachers with technology, the districts save money, and the tech companies strike it rich.
As David Sirota writes, districts (especially those with Broad-trained superintendents) are pouring millions into iPads, tablets, etc., in hope that students will learn online and be tested online. at the same time, class sizes will get larger as the teacher becomes a monitor, supervising rather than teaching. Even districts that have suffered budget cuts and lost essential services will somehow find the money to invest in technology.
Win-win-lose.
Win for those who sell technology.
Win for those who want larger classes taught online.
Loss for the kids, who need a human teacher to help them and explain.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve done some work teaching creative writing with Writopia, and particularly with the younger kids, the technology can be more of a distraction to creative thinking than an aid. I was working with one really bright boy to create a piece using the elements of story from a picture. We were working side by side using the same document on Google Drive, with him telling me the story and me typing for him. But all he wanted to do was change the fonts rather than think about the story. Finally I told him to close his computer, and then he was able to actually engage and be creative and imaginative. Two days later, I did use Powerpoint in a useful way – originally we were going to illustrate a story he’d already written, but then he decided he wanted to write a new story using the images he was finding, which was terrific – but he needed some time AWAY from the screen to get the creativity flowing first. What the technology pushers don’t seem to get (or maybe they do but have ulterior motives) is that tablets are JUST ANOTHER TOOL. They AREN’T the solution. To claim anything different is just another attempt to sell the public a very expensive bill of goods.
I’ve found the same thing. My students write essays on My Access writing program, which has been sort of mandated because the state writing test is on the computer and they want the kids to get used to it. My Access is nice for some things–spelling and grammar checks, immediate feedback, saving paper–but some kids can’t handle it. I always have a few students to just mess with the fonts, colors or surf online instead of writing. I have 30-35 students per class, so I can’t monitor everyone all the time. Most kids do well with it, but some kids really get distracted by these.
So what you’re saying is one size doesn’t fit all? Imagine that. If only more people could comprehend that fact, maybe they’d let the teachers teach.
The best way to match schools to students would be to allow the students to choose the school. The only way to maintain traditional zoned schools is to ensure that they are all identical.
I know that most of my pre-k students are quite capable of using electronic devices, It’s wonderful that they are able to use modern tools. Technology is only one small skill set that children, whom we anticipate and hope ,will grow into adults with many skills sets. Technology cannot help a child work through feelings of dispare when a parent dies or the family has to move into a shelter, or learn how to work collaboratively in a group setting, a skill set that is highly desirable in today’s world. We are isolating children more and more in the name of reform.
I can’t imagine a untrained adult trying to keep a group of 3 yo’s engaged with, for example, ipads for long periods of time
Where the reformers never children? Do they ever actually interact with real children? Even children of privilege want to jump, hop, skip, pretend to be a power ranger, want to see what happens when you write on a wall with a marker.
I never would have believed that I would be living in Orwellian times.
I think online classes will be a big help to students in rural districts in my state, especially in high school.
With the exception of your gifted son, have you ever seen a middle or high school student take an online class? It’s a pain in the neck. My son did it for Geography (I teach Geography) so that he could take more electives. While that was nice, the glitches were a huge pain. This is a state-based program that’s been going for at least 5 years, and yet the entire state system was down for three weeks. No one could get on. Then, the school created an artificial deadline that everything had to be done just a month after the system came back on and everyone had to rush to get done. And don’t even get me started on the testing codes that were incorrect, and so my son had to wait over a week before he could take the final, which he failed because he had to wait so long. He said he will NEVER do an online class again, and I am SO glad for that. I don’t expect that my experience is atypical.
The question is always what is the alternative?
One of my students graduated high school in a class of 21. He had transferred to this “big” high school his senior year because his original high school was closed because of its small size.
Other than through online classes, how would you give students from small high schools like this a diverse curriculum?
Yes, in extreme rural areas and in extreme circumstances it MAY work. In the very rural areas of our state, we have online/video learning for AP classes and such. The difference, in my mind, is that in those circumstances, there is a live teacher answering questions and giving long-distance assistance. The students are required to connect with a teacher at certain points. The online experience we dealt with had a teacher, but we never even saw a picture of her, and she most likely had 60 or more students, in addition to teaching regular, in-person classes during the day. This meant that there was NO personal help for my son. It was good that it was Geography, so that I could help him with it. I had another student that tried to take U.S. History online and gave up after a few weeks. He is a very bright and self-driven young man, and he struggled, too.
Same experience here. A special ed. high school student with whom I have worked was FORCED to take an Algebra course online, because this student received a C. The C grade was NOT GOOD ENOUGH for the school. In the name of high expectations, receiving a C for any class is NOT ACCEPTABLE in this school. Duh…
This online course was a total nightmare. He student guide was awful as was the text and the tests. There was supposedly testing centers for the midterm and final exams. Hah…the testing centers here were closed! The person in charge of this horrid online course had NO CLUE that the testing centers were NO MORE! Plus the course was super EXPENSIVE, too! Unbelievable! 😦 This online course was a total waste of resources. Wonder what others took this dumb online course? Just providing an example, nothing else.
Terrible classes are terrible classes no matter how they are taught.
@teachingeconomist – why? Is there something special about children in rural communities that they don’t need teachers?
They need teachers, but are you going to offer a full rich curriculum in a high school with 250 students? (That is the median size high school in my state)
goodpoint kim,
there are so many straw man arguments for this when thousands of years of stylus and reed and chisel and rock, generational storytelling and scholarship propellled humanity to this point where it will be wiped out by a really rich malevolent doofus and some cloaked marxists. pathetic. the emperor is still naked.
Jane,
The median sized high school in my state has 250 students. I have students from high schools with fewer than 100 students. Scale matters, and these students will not get the opportunities available to students in large urban schools. No IB programs, no AP classes, minimal special ed classes. The science teacher (yes there is likely only one) covers all sciences at all levels.
teachingeconomist, ” full rich curriculum”, is it a goose? is it a full bodied cab? hezukristi! it is reading and writing and some math and music and art. Education has become this gargantuan ego that wants to eat everything it sees. the descriptions of education are ridiculous, deep engagement, fulll and rich, one sees a drop of saliva in the corners of teachers/educrats mouths and it makes parents extremely uncomfortable. reality man.
Jane — I assume he means “courses that otherwise wouldn’t be offered because there aren’t enough interested students in the school.”
Jane,
If you are willing to say that we should not try to have a better education for all, that rather than allowing virtual courses we simply limit rural students to the most very basic courses, than we just have a difference of opinion.
They need teachers. Rural districts in South Dakota have developed a “patched solution” to this, as they have developed distance learning classes, where the teacher teaches via video, not on-line. The problem is when you have a K-12 grade system of 144 students, it is hard to justify the cost of an English teacher for only one high school of 40 students. Whereas a normal high school teaches 150 students, or so.
From a higher education perspective, online learning, if conducted appropriately, can be an excellent method of learning. Many institutions are contracting with third party vendors to develop their online courses. This creates a disconnect between the instructor and the course and removes any ownership the instructor has over the course. This causes a resentment by faculty because they have been reduced to a course facilitator. Faculty need to learn to develop and deliver quality web-based courses but unfortunately administration wants courses built fast and furious and are not investing in their faculty. The same is true for educational technologies. Many k12 systems as well as higher ed institutions purchase and distribute iPads etc and only provide training on the mechanics of interacting with the technology but do not provide training on educational uses for the technologies. I call it the “Look at What We are Doing” syndrome. The focus is wrong!
Now, our state requires the first two math classes at the university to be online. There’s not even an option. The failing rates have skyrocketed, because students can’t get help when they need it. The only thing that does is line the pockets of those schools because students have to pay tuition over and over again so that they can finally pass.
You can tell that I don’t find online learning to be very awesome, huh? (:
What are those math classes?
Math 1010 and 1050, which are basically College Algebra. With the exception of kids who have passed AP, everyone has to pass these two classes in order to graduate from any state college or university.
Thanks for the couse numbers. I couldn’t find them at LSU’s website, but it is probably a numbering difference. I did see that a quantitative SAT score of more than 570 would automatically give a student credit for Math 1021 College Algebra and placement into a calculus course.
LSU’s math placement can be found here: https://www.math.lsu.edu/ugrad/PlacementCredit
I’m not in Louisiana, TE. That is a reference to a terribly written question I once encountered on a standardized test. I’m in Utah.
I apologize for making an assumption based on your name.
Just looked up math placement at the University of Utah. A score of 560 on the math section of the SAT will place a student in Math 1080 Precalculus.
Placement for the University of Utah can be found here:http://www.math.utah.edu/ugrad/qa.html
There’s no research that proves or even provides strong correlation between technology use and achievement is there? Just because you know how to use a computer, tablet or whatever does not prove this will help improve achievement. Isn’t the software, the meat of the issue. Now that we have the hardware, what software is most effective in giving us the return we need to boost achievement. This is not even discussed. As commenters above have said, the hardware is just a tool to use and not the answer to the problem. So those districts, spending mucho dollars for hardware, that’s just the beginning. The real serious money will go to software and determining in each discipline, which software is most effective, age appropriate etc. All in the pursuit of increasing online learning. I’ve never took a course online that I enjoyed or wanted to repeat. I need personal connection to get involved and learn. Sorry, there’s no substitute for that teacher, that personal connection and frankly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Nicholas Carr, in The Shallows, argues that heavy electronic use actually has a stultifying, attention-scattering effect. Mark Bauerlein, in The Dumbest Generation, makes similar arguments.
In my own classes (in a school where everyone gets a laptop), I find that many students find laptops to be a distraction and even a hindrance in acquiring certain skills.
I find this to be true also. but it does not fit the narrative funded by the fed and gates and cisco and GE.
@Paula: As I mentioned above, if faculty are engaged in discussions and video conferences etc, and the course is designed based upon instructional design best practices, online learning can be very rewarding to individuals that require direct interaction. As for K12 settings, my complaint is the use of web-based Courseware for at risk populations to recover credits. These populations typically need the immediate question and answer opportunities in the F2F classroom. My preference is to offer “true” web-based courses to advanced students who are more self directed, allowing time for teachers to work with at risk students more frequently. (Not at the risk of neglecting higher functions students.)
Yes, this is the future. This is the whole push behind the Khan Academy. I can see it now. Maybe 50 to 60 students sitting in rows watching a screen where the monitor (formerly called teacher) just pushes “play”. They could even hire a few burly guards to make the kids pay attention to the screen. These guards could have tasers and shockers. There would be a quick extraction team ready to pull out disruptive students and send them to reeducation camps. We have twenty years left, if we are lucky.
My district is debating Google Chrome Books or I-Pads right now. Once either of these is implemented it is goodbye teaching as it was formerly experienced. The students will check Facebook or play games while I talk to myself in front of the class. The administrators will see all the quiet students staring at screens and clicking and think that actual work is going on. At least my discipline problems will be over. There will be lots of clicking and little learning. So it goes..
I have noticed that many teachers have already given up and let their students text or listen to music during class. This was completely shocking to me. No one tells them not to do this. It is only a few of us dinosaurs who don’t allow this, and the kids hate us for it. This does cut down on disruption, and many teachers are tired of trying to force the students to think, talk or listen to something longer than five (3) minutes.
On a personal note, I find it almost impossible to read anymore myself at night. I end up watching a top quality show like “Dexter, Homeland, Boardwalk Empire”, etc. Or I get engrossed watching a documentary on Elizabethan England or WW2. Jonathan Franzen wrote essays about this. If top level readers prefer to watch TV then it is over. Let the games begin.
I said this earlier, if faculty are taught to develop quality engaging online courses, in which a large emphasis is placed on student to student and student to teacher interaction, the same level of social learning can occur. I am very anti “canned curriculum”. I too have worked extensively with these products and companies and am disgusted with the minimalistic approaches they have taken. Again, regarding Paula’s comments. If you develop quality webbased courses for advanced students, at risk students potentially have more access to the teachers. It depends on numerous variables.
and what a great way to debauch history too. propaganda hole.
Might want to check out this paper – “Evidence from the One Laptop Per Child Program”
“This paper presents the results of the first randomized evaluation of the OLPC program. The study sample included primary public schools in rural areas of Peru with low baseline levels of computer access. The intervention generated a substantial increase in computer use both at school and at home. Results indicate limited
effects on academic achievement but positive impacts on cognitive skills and competences related to computer use. Cognitive abilities may arise through using the programs included in the laptops, given that they are aimed at improving thinking processes. However, to improve learning in Math and Language, there is a need for high-quality instruction. From previous studies, this does not seem the norm in public schools in Peru, where much rote learning takes place (Cueto et al., 200
6; Cueto, Ramírez and León, 2006). Hence, our suggestion is to combine the provisi
on of laptops with a pedagogical model targeted toward increased achievement by students. Our results suggest that computers by themselves, at least as initially delivered by the OLPC program, do not increase achievement in curricular areas”
http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=36706954
Where’s the HUMANITY? GONE.
Online technologies have enormous potential, for good and ill.
In the past few years, I’ve studied a LOT of the new online offerings in PreK-12 education VERY carefully, and most are dreadful–most are little more than extremely dumbed-down, cartoon-dominated instruction paired with traditional worksheets presented on a screen rather than on paper. The new PreK-12 online offerings tend to be graphically very sophisticated and tend to have very sophisticated reporting capabilities to meet the demand for “data,” but the quality of the actual instruction tends to be very low indeed, and the value of the supposed data is often extremely questionable. A student will do a 20-minute online lesson or unit and take away almost no new learning. And the materials for challenged students tend to be the worst of the lot.
Some well-meaning politicians seek a magic potion for curing educational ills like tight budgets, and the promise of customizing education via computerized diagnostics and immediate feedback is intoxicating to them (though not, typically, to the teachers and students who end up having to use this stuff). Many other politicians, including state department of education officials, are simply willing to do anything to promote the new offerings from their cronies in the ed-book industry, who lobby them heavily to create tailor-made funding sources for sale of their poorly conceived online products–products that are innovative in one sense and in one sense only–that they have slick graphic designs. Bottom line: whatever the materials being used, online or print, there is no substitute for a knowledgeable, caring, physically present teacher who can serve as mentor and, importantly, as a model of what a learner is.
Online technologies can be very powerful. Think, for example, of how research is improved by having immediate access to magnificent libraries of information. Think, for example, of what it means, for a kid in a poor, rural village with no library and little access to decent schooling to have any sort of access. But politicians want to believe in magic, that there is always a simple solution to difficult problems like child poverty. I remember, for example, hearing George Bush, Jr., say, “I solved the education problem in America on my first day in office”–this because he signed the No Child Left Behind legislation, which instigated the whole high-stakes testing horror. That comment is typical of the deformers, who are attracted to easy answers to difficult questions. The notion that we can have acceptable education sans teachers is more such simple-minded nonsense of the GW “I solved the education problem” variety.
When I think back on my own educational experiences to those that were most meaningful, most important to me, they all had to do with some person, some teachers, whom I came to admire for his or her wisdom, knowledge, passion, engagement. I have, in my head, an honor roll of such amazing teachers. I suspect that we all do. I hate to think of what my education would have been like if it hadn’t been for these people, if, instead, I had simply been plugged in. I am reminded of those awful experiments done at the Yerkes Primate Institute many, many years ago, in which some chimp babies were breastfed by mothers and others were breastfed by bottles hanging from wire contraptions in their cages. The latter were never able to be have normal social interactions. The experience made them, quite literally, insane. It would be a terrible, terrible mistake simply to try to plug all our students into some electronic teat. We have a series of charter schools here in Florida that work exactly like that. Kids show up to building that used to be a grocery store but that has been renovated to create large rooms with computer monitors around the walls. There, a hundred kids do online worksheets all day, and a single facilitator/teacher walks around making sure that they are booted up and working. Your tax dollars at work turning kids into chimps feeding from wireframe surrogates.
Robert D. Shepherd: I agree.
Let me add that very often I am struck by how much online classes resemble high-stakes standardized tests [note: I am referring to events on Planet Reality, not RheeWorld]. I bring up just three. First, there is a strong tendency to encourage superficial thinking in order to do the required work. Second, work be damned, education is construed to mean simply another form of entertainment. Third, the “impatient optimists” variety of “no excuses” evangelists of both insist that they must be ‘excused’ from producing even minimally acceptable results until such time in the future as they have ‘worked out all the bugs.’ Unfortunately for us, that future always seems to recede ever more into the distance.
Need I mention that I think that various forms of technology can provide [sometimes amazing] support for actual learning and teaching? I guess I must, since the mantra is that everyone who doesn’t unconditionally submit to the omniscient edutechnocrats belongs to the same camp as those who believe that “poor children can’t learn,” the only problem being that only Straw Men actually say or believe those things.
Call me old-fashioned, but could those old Greek guys have had a good thought or two?
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” [Plutarch]
Keep posting.
🙂
I would.d agree If I could insurt “some” or perhaps “most” in front of “online classes”.
There are a variety of online sources that students can use to construct their own class. My middle son taught himself Galois theory with a textbook, Wikipedia, and Mathematics Stack Exchange.
Correction: “some teacher,” not “some teachers”
Okay, there is some good in online learning but as far as using it to increase achievement levels of students, I am unconvinced. If,as some of you say, it is good for more advanced learners, that doesn’t really speak to the problems we have in our inner city K12 programs. What is the connection between the use of this hardware and software to achievement advances in our K12 group?
@Paula. I agree with you. In and of itself, the technology doesn’t effect achievement. What a teacher orlearner uses it for, can affect achievement.
Our school has just finished year two of an iPad pilot program, using them with math software for our Algebra students. I teach English, not math, so I am not sure what data the department has specifically collected. But I do know that teachers at my school, while they have mostly adjusted to using them instead of textbooks, have run into some problems with kids playing games instead of working on math. The kids do like being able to repeat lessons at home when doing homework, but I am pretty sure the $670 per student does not justify the cost (that’s with the fancy case that prevents it from being broken.). I will be curious to see the research, if anyone is compiling it in my district, but for now, the highest math scores our principal is praising come not due to the iPads, but to another experiment we tried this year involving our move to block scheduling, kids taking 8 classes instead of 6, then giving low performing students two blocks of math instead of one. These kids outperformed the mid level kids in math tests and grades. Why? Everyone had an iPad, but these kids had more seat time/instruction with their teacher. Again, only anecdotal evidence, but the principal, a former math teacher, was so impressed he wanted to double block all the algebra students next year.
We did try to use ipads in a limited way with English students, who could down load a free pdf of a classic novel, for example, but again, it was hard to monitor who was really reading or playing games, and a cheap paperback is still less expensive than an ebook for more current titles. We also could have bought twice as many laptops for the students with the same amount of money.
Re: Kahn Academy. In a limited number if words, the Kahn academy is at best a resource. It is not web-based instruction. I’m sure Gates et al., see it that way, but they do not see it from a child’s/learner a perspective. I imagine before long Pearson and Kahn will team up to coordinate efforts. If, as John said, public education turns into 50-60 students completing online modules, that is when I begin home schooling!
The unfortunate thing about iPads is that they don’t do many things very well. They are a fantastic media consumption device. They’re easy to carry. But they’re not very good at creating content other than short little notes. They permit only very simple user interactions — it doesn’t get much simpler than poking a two-dimensional surface. I tend to think that with iPads, much of why people construe as student engagement isn’t much more than the mothlike reflex we all have to stare at screens.
The best apps for creating content I have found are ones that allow you to make screencasts of what you are drawing on it with your voice over it.
“And now I’m making these squiggly lines over here, I think those are pretty neat . . .”
I draw lots of squiggly lines in class, and my students like it better when they can stop and rewind me.
It sounds like your students want to learn. How will technology help the low-achieving student who doesn’t want to learn? I have taught students who were just as disruptive in the computer lab as they were in my classroom. These students will not stop and rewind me, but in my physical presence I could at least teach to the child’s (usually tactile) learning style. That computer screen isn’t going to teach like I did, no matter how much they say they “individualize learning”.
In FL, we mandate that at least one high school course must be from a virtual school. I wish a parent would sue, as this is not in the best interest of every student in the state, but rather in the best interest of lowering costs for taxpayers while lining the pockets of the non-unionized online “schools” who go through teachers like toilet paper. I had a friend with an ADHD child who said it was a nightmare to get him to complete his online “class”. After teaching all day, she had to come home and ensure her son attended school online too. That was not the best placement for him.
Who is the government to decide where a student goes to school? Doesn’t this fly in the face of their rallying cry for school choice? Obviously, school choice is only for those choosing charters and online school, not public school.
Perhaps there is room for a variety of students and a variety of approaches to learning.
I’m considered by many to be very knowledgable in this field (I haven’t pursued a master’s in educational technology though because I think it will be of very limited practical and professional utility at this point).
Technology is only as good as the access. In many cases, technology used as a supplement, can boost student learning. Students will need to learn to interact in such a technology rich world.
That being said, at the end of the day, the technology is a tool. The iPad will be supplanted by something else eventually. So will the webservices I use to teach. It’s not what the services can do for my students, I prefer to view it as what can I give to my students via these services (there’s a subtle difference there).
To Ex-Teacher – I take exception to your characterization of low-achieving students who don’t want to learn.
I do believe, that when a child shows up to school, something brought them there and it’s more than the free lunch or the socialization. I do think many typically low achieving students have had very negative experiences with school, and many of them have been characterized as failures all their lives.
Now, a brand like TFA tries to capitalize on this and say that it’s just because the student had bad teachers. I’m not going to go that route and say you could fix every child’s problems if you just taught a better lesson.
I do think breaking some of the negative social ties connected to learning which can exist in some communities and have largely developed because so many students perceive themselves as failures, that anyone who doesn’t fit that is not normal, is necessary.
We need better nurturing communities for students. They need to exist online, and they need to exist in real life. They will be sometimes motivated by technology use, true, but, when they recognize it’s because it gives them autonomy to consume media over learning is where things go awry and I’ve used most computer monitoring suites out there – each one has an achilles heel.
We need nurturing communities that teach students to resist the need for instant gratification. When I see some programs like this that plan to bring in the technology without a real sense of how it will be implemented, it invites abuse, theft, and theft of learning time.
Our students I do believe want to learn – but when they get to us they’ve already had a world of experiences that has taught them that what’s worth learning is not necessarily a teacher structured lesson. We have to work hard to break them of that and use our communities to guide them and pressure them to make smarter choices.
Choices for themselves, and for all of society.
My comments from another posting are appropriate here:
I don’t know how none of us never learned nuthin without computers, ipads, etc. . . to teach us. I guess people like Descartes, Einstein, Socrates, Confucius, Sor Juana, Averroes, Maimonides, Buddha, etc. . . must not have been “edumacated”.
Heck, this “We’ll give you all your own computer…” thing is almost like the dealer giving away free samples of crack and heroin to seed a market. Back when I was really sad about not having much money, I felt bad I couldn’t give my own child the computer he deserved, so I always felt the sorrow working people were feeling when they couldn’t afford that home computer that they knew were giving the “other kids” an edge.
Later, I discovered that the “everyone gets a computer” bait-and-switch was a common trick among the recruiters for the charter schools in Chicago. (Their marketing tricks were unfolding over time, but that was an early one we caught as it was used by the Edison Schools “campus” of Chicago International Charter Schools, CICS). It was really a cynical manipulation of poor people who wanted the best for their children but couldn’t afford it.
The public alternative: lots of computers available in every public library and public school for all uses, etc., etc. were not used as gimmicks or alternatives to other sensible policies, like we are seeing in Chicago (where all the kids whose schools were closed are supposedly going to get an “iPad” at their “Welcoming Schools”) or Los Angeles (where it sounds like Deasy’s latest scam is to pose the “iPad for all” scheme as an alternative to lowering class size).
These guys and ladies (Deasy in LA; Byrd Bennet for now in Chicago; etc. the Broad Leadership outfit has trained hundreds to replace them…) have to get their well coordinated talking points from some central Kafka-Orwell scripting corporation. One day, we’ll locate that polluted precinct too.
For now, it’s simple.
Tell the tax evading corporations that if they love our urban children so much, give their product to all of them. I’m sure they can get a half dozen tax write offs for that little bit of “charity.” And in the process, we can avoid having these silly discussion with the corporate school reform zombies, whether Deasy in LA, Byrd Bennett in Chicago, or Paul Vallas in wherever the suckers land him next.