I was invited to write an essay on technology for “Scientific American.” I have not yet seen the issue so am not sure who else contributed. When I was invited, I was told that there would be articles by Bill Gates and Arne Duncan. As you know, there are a few differences among us. One of them is that I write every single word that is published under my name. No one else writes my books, articles, blogs, tweets, speeches, or anything else.
Here is the article in “Scientific American.” Let me know what you think.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My only question from the article is about the possabilities for non-profit virtual classes, perhaps offered by specialist organizations like The Art of Problem Solving. The structure of the organization is a regulatory issue, not one directly connected with the technology being used.
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Terrific article, Diane! It’s wonderful that you point out the very serious issues, too, since most people are not even aware of most of them. Thanks for all you do!
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Very good–I like the way it is laid out and concludes with possibilities for good or ill. (Choices!)
As a parent, it is important to me that screen time is limited for my child. I want to know he is using scissors and glue, learning to write, using a variety of resources–not just I-pads. In fact, I took a literacy CEU workshop in Kansas City where we were told that limiting screen time is important in the development of eye muscles for reading.
So much of what is being ushered in as best practice goes against my better judgement as a parent. And at a recent technology class I took through my district, it was presented that children longer need to know dates or how to spell. That is malarkey. Even without my degree from Davidson, I would know that is just not good guidance.
I have two principles in what I want for my child:
1. If we had no electricity or wi-fi, could he still keep himself busy in a meaningful way, and interpret the world around him. (Kind of like the best trumpet players can buzz their music, note for note, nuance for nuance, with just the mouth piece and even with just their lips).
2. If I had no money, what would I expect my community to have available for his development.
With these two principles in mind (grounded in my Presbyterian upbringing), I give pause and lack excitement about the overuse and misuse of technology in public education.
I hope I can be influential in modeling meaningful instruction that is balanced (as a music teacher, I have a little more freedom to that). As a parent, it is a must in our household that the children be independent of their gadgets more often than not.
Another music analogy–drum machines are nice; but a good drummer is a treasure!! Sweat and all.
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I left out the word “no” in meaning “no longer” per spelling and dates.
(I do type in a hurry–busy mom trying to keep up with children).
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Yes, exactly. Technology is a tool and, like all tools, can be used for good or ill. Just because I happen to have a hammer in my tool kit doesn’t mean I need to use it all the time – only when I have a need for which the hammer is actually useful. Same with computers, the Internet, etc.
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Had meeting with NY State Comptroller Tom di Napoli about Common Core,
who put me in touch with his Deputy. Tom is my former Assemblyman and we
both worked on safe school issues in our own way.
His Deputy Comptroller, Bob Ward, has taken an interest, despite the issue being with the State Ed Dept. I have encouraged Bob to create a working group (me included) to look at the costs of the Common Core for schools. Bob has worked with Richard Ravitch in the past. .
I am a regular contributor to Susan Ohanian’s Outrages, who knows me well. as an educational activist, particularly with school indoor air quality. I am on LinkedIn.
Cheers
Joseph
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Tom DiNapoli is a great guy. He was a school board member when he was only 18!
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Excellent article, Diane. I have been a little concerned that I could be replaced by a computer for a while now. I like Joanna’s reply; besides just causing issues in the development of eye muscles, I have seen plenty of research– not to mention the ever increasing number of students ariving in my first grade classoom already taking medication such as Ritalin–nothing that too much time on comuters and other technology gagets promotes issues with attention. I worry that children do not know how to play today. Puzzles are always out in my classroom and on rainy days, I get out blocks for my first graders. Art /music/dance and drama are integrated into the subjects I teach as much as I can. I kind of wonder what happens to all the people who are so dependent on technology when there is a major hurricane like Katrina or Superstorm Sandy. By the way, all of the elementary schools in the Archdiocese in which I teach have been using Scott Foresman’s Reading Street series (produced by Pearson) for a while now and have just adopted the new version that goes along with the Common Core Standards. This teacher has not and will not use the computer assessments unless I am made to! In fact, most of the time I do not even use the paper version of the series’ assessments; most of the time I make my own.
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Excellent article (maybe even a little bad-assed), you pointed out some of the missuses of the computer and emphasized the computer as a “tool” to improve instruction.
I couldn’t help but read Duncan’s article. It was like a commercial on what he was doing. You could tell he knows nothing about Education. He did make a statement :
“I emphatically do not believe that technology ever can replace teachers in any way. The vital human connection between educator and learner will always be the crucial spark in education.”
I believe that statement as much as I believed Governor Christie’s statement when he said that he would not touch our pensions.
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Can you tell me where you found Duncan’s article?
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Jonathan, From Diane’s link click on the “book” on the left of the title, it says “see inside”. Duncan’s article and an article from Khan and several others are there,
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I can’t get Duncan’s article to open. An error screen comes up. Here is the URL I get:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/editorial/digital-education/left-column/arne-duncan-how-technology-will-revolutionize-testing-and-learning/http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arne-duncan-how-technology-will-revolutionize-testing-learning
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If anybody wants to read Arne’s idiot ramble, here is a working link:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=arne-duncan-how-technology-will-revolutionize-testing-learning
It’s probably wise to study the text, which savvy publicists have written for him:
“That is why the Obama administration has taken steps to ensure access and equity in digital learning: with funding for innovations that tailor learning to students’ needs; with funding for new assessments that are part of a state-led effort to raise learning standards; and with a major five-year challenge from the president to give virtually every student access to broadband and wireless Internet.”
Pay attention to the funding for “innovations that tailor learning to students’ needs.” That’s the Big Data. The “adaptive learning” piece is where wise computer algorithms will continuously monitor and direct children’s enslavement to their tablets.
The link on the Scientific American sidebar is still broken.
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Technology is a tool. Superstorm Sandy left many without electricity for weeks. At a Chain Pharmacy in my neighborhood, people went to pick up their prescriptions, only to be turned away by workers who were directed not to allow anyone to pick up their medicines because…… the computers were down. Ugh!
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Diane, thank you for this relevant perspective on the use of technology in education.
My personal experience with this dilemma includes the forced use of a Carnegie program for math remediation.
For the last four years I have taught math “remediation” to 8th grade students. I am convinced that my greatest challenge with these students is to “change their minds”, both about math and about themselves. This requires building a relationship with each individual student, and providing opportunities for us (each class) to function as a community. Here they are free to take risks and open their minds.
Enter Race to the Top, and the requirement that data be collected on the “progress” of these students. This means standardization across the school and district as to what these students are doing, and what data is being collected.
Carnegie, according to a district math chair “is the most robust program out there.”
Please!!!
So last school year my job was reduced to supervising my students in a computer lab. No interaction. No discourse. No group problem solving. Just individuals laboring over a boring program on their computer screens- frequently asking for clarification- because 1. These students frequently struggle with reading- especially content specific text, and 2. In many instances the problems are so contrived and unrealistic that students struggle to relate.
Attention difficulties are often related to poor achievement, and for these students, sitting in front of a computer with this type of activity for up to an hour can be torturous.
Because we were not forced to comply with the Carnegie mandate until after the first marking period, my students knew what they were missing. They pleaded to return to the classroom, claiming that it was there that they learned best.
This is just one scenario of many across the country in which technology, data collection, and profit has replaced real teaching and learning.
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Oops! “…have replaced”
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As an early enthusiast about the potential of information technology to bridge the gap between education and research as it built bridges between learners and teachers, I remain convinced of the potential but have become wary of the many shabby exploitations.
The crucial question is who remains in control of the medium, educators and researchers, learners and teachers, or some hierarchy of gatekeepers and toll takers who care for nothing but their own regime of profit and power.
I’m afraid the latter forces currently have the upper hand and seem hell bent not to give it up without a fight.
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Good article. Kahn somehow thinks that the standard teaching approach is the professor standing up in front of the class and lecturing–while this is true in many higher ed institutions, where the vast majority of professors have never had instruction in how to teach, I think Kahn would be hardpressed to find actual k-12 school teachers just lecturing at the students. Yes, in some of those districts where the curriculum is mandated, page by page, and the teachers have to follow the pages each day, perhaps such lecturing does occur–but that is not teaching. Virtual schools have to start somewhere, perhaps we have to put up with the current bad stuff in order to get to a better place? Research has shown that the students most likely to not improve achievement through online or computer courses are the very ones being targeted by remediation courseware providers and school improvement programs. The kids do not have the time management, reading, or attention skills needed to be productive online.
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Perhaps we need to invert the two: students not in need of remediation use the courseware so that the teacher can spend more time with those that need remediation (or simply have trouble learning from the courseware).
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Or here’s a thought – let’s hire enough teachers so that all students – those in need of remediation AND those not in need – can get the attention they need from a live and in person teacher.
As a side benefit, all those newly re-employed teachers would then be paying taxes rather collecting unemployment
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That would be a good idea, but perhaps difficult to do, especially in rural areas. Do you have any interest in moving to rural Montana, North Dakota, or Whoming?
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Committed cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: 6 trillion.
What we got for our 6 trillion. You tell me.
Number of yearly teacher salaries that the 6 trillion would have paid: 106 million.
Total number of K-12 teachers in the US: 3.3 million.
There’s always plenty for no-bid contracts to companies belonging to the military-industrial complex. .
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Robert Shepherd,
Great point about the cost of war . . . I concur.
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I love the article. As a classroom teacher, I definitely feel the pressure to use technology in the classroom. I understand the benefits of technology as well as the wealth of information available on the internet, but I have also seen my share of negativity related to technology. I teach middle school language arts. We have a policy in our county that allows personally-owned electronic devices to be used in the school and in classrooms, as long as it does not conflict with the school’s code of behavior. This policy has been, for me, more of detriment to the classroom than a benefit. Students feel that they have an entitlement to use their cell phones and other devices whenever they wish. When teachers tell them to put the devices away, students look at them like the teachers are in the wrong. When did school become a place to chat with friends on Facebook and take pictures for Instagram? What happened to learning? It’s taking the back burner.
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I try to leverage my student’s devices. In large classes (I teach at a university) I use a service called Poll Everywhere (there are others as well) to get my students to answer questions by texting from their phones. It is free for classes under 40 students. You might want to check it out.
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I am assuming that your university students have a vested interest in learning something in your classes although, remembering my own college days, that was sometimes in doubt. Middle school students, as a rule, are goodhearted but not focused on “their career and college readiness.” A phone is an invitation to several more attractive activities that are decidedly non-pedagogical. I seem to remember a photograph of the computer screens of several legislators during a speech by a colleague. The screens did not even remotely suggest productive multitasking, whatever that is. Need I say more?
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My theory is that they are going to be texting someone. It might as well be me.
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The idea of students having and using phones in class is something I just can’t process. NYC bans them right now — check your phone at the door, basically. Students don’t seem to like the rule. Surprisingly, a lot of teachers also seem to dislike the ban, at least judging by those who comment online.
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My guess is the ban is nearly impossible to enforce. In my local high schools kids just put the phones on vibrate.
Phones have advantages over “clickers” in the large classes that I teach. Students always have their phones with them, never lend them out to a friend, don’t forget to charge them, etc. Phones also allow for full text responses which I can through up on the projector (with moderation of course).
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Thank you for the info! I’ll definitely check it out.
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Diane, you are so right. Check out this story about MOOCs at San Jose St. Silicon Valley’s silver bullet misfired- an epic Fail.
Their cultural tropes don’t necessarily translate into the real world educational arena.
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It’s my fervent hope that technology will be used in education to provide more diversity of offerings, more paths, more ways for students to develop their unique potentials instead of being used as a means for top-down, totalitarian/authoritarian schemes for standardization of curricula and assessment.
It seems to me completely bizarre that the same people who are continually talking about the exciting future that we can have because of entrepreneurship in education have also bought into national standards and national databases of student responses and scores.
Trains can be used to carry people on holiday, cheaply, to places they might otherwise not have been able to afford to visit, enabling them to experience the broadening effects of travel; or they can be used to transport children from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno death camp. Trains, in themselves, are neither good nor bad. Same with educational technology in general.
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Good analogy. 🙂
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Terrific article Diane. We could fill a stadium for a 3 way debate between you, Duncan and Gates.
At least we can dream about it
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Diane, I love that you “outed” B&M Gates and company’s not so hidden agenda. The data stuff is really creepy, I hope others feel that way too.
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Thank you for your clear, beneficial article on the “the Promise and Peril of Technology in Education.” Our U.S. students deserve face to face human interaction as they progress with learning all that they can. Keep up the good work; I am disappointed that FERPA was weakened. I don’t think most American parents and educators know this.
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This is very special for me, because 51 years ago, on July 25 1962, my mother gave me a subscription to Scientific American for my 13th birthday. She bought me the current issue, cut out the subscription form and mailed it, and then gift-wrapped the magazine. She also baked me a heart-shaped cake (make a 9″ square one, and a 9″ round one, and cut the round one in half, and lay out the heart).
I had only bought one issue before that; this one:
http://backissues.com/issue/Scientific-American-September-1961
I lived on an unpaved road in rural Florida, with a front row seat on the rollout of the greatest discoveries in cell biology.
It was from this magazine I learned what the military industrial complex was, studying the ads for mysterious entities like Rand Corporation. The editors had no more guts than they do now, unfortunately, with regard to big-buck interests. I quickly understood there was something going on in American science that would never belong to me, but the discipline that became biochemistry seemed to speak out for itself independently, through the work of those pioneers.
A couple of years later, I picked up Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring at the Quonset hut post library in Fort Sill Oklahoma, and it all came together.
Thanks for writing so clearly for Scientific Americn, Diane, and for displaying human values and judgement right on the page. You will never know what kids read it, but remember
Way down the river, a hundred miles or more,
Other little children will bring my boats to shore.
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I love this, Chemteacher!
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Thanks, Diane. You eloquently speak for those of us in the field!
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@ 4equity2:
If you are talking about Carnegie Learning’s Algebra 1 Cognitive Tutor use in the middle school, the research doesn’t support what your math chair says. The abstract states, “The estimated effect is statistically significant for high schools but not for middle schools.” Here’s a link to the study.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR984.html
It’s an understatement to say your chair should seriously consider how the Carnegie program is implemented in your district. That’s an atrocious learning environment.
I was interested in the Carnegie hype so I posted an inquiry on my blog and heard from Steve Ritter, a co-founder of Carnegie Learning. I later followed up with John Hattie of Visible Learning because I respect his work. While they have a difference of opinion on impact, they both agree that how the program is implemented is paramount.
Based on Ritter’s comment on implementation, I hope he would shutter at the thought that his product creates an unengaged learning environment where the teacher is being reduced to “supervising my students in a computer lab. No interaction. No discourse. No group problem solving. Just individuals laboring over a boring program…”
That’s not my vision of education either. Let’s hope Carnegie Learning is not laughing all the way to the bank.
If you are interested in reading my post, visit:
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dianerav: few words, much said, well written.
Thank you.
🙂
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I agree. Technology, when used between students and teachers, is an amazing tool. But frankly, given a choice, my young students would much rather communicate with me than a computer screen.
In fact, if I ask my students which they would rather do – use the cutting edge, wall sized, interactive smart board in the class to watch a video of a book, or cozy up next to the big easy chair with the lamp light over my shoulder lighting the real book, they will, without fail, pick the carpet, the chair, the lamp, the book. They crave human interaction and intimate conversation. They crave quiet moments with only their imaginations for company. They crave shared experiences. They listen with all their senses – it is a beautiful thing to behold.
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This is a problem with technology period, the dissociation between people and interactions. I hate that. We’re so busy texting, phoning, gaming that we miss the persons or situations directly in. Front of us. In a sense we are more connected but never farther apart.
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Correction, We are more connected but never more farther apart…pax
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One terrifying example of the misuse of technology in the pursuit of profit in education.
In order to lower payroll costs, L.A. Unified School District has jailed and dismissed about 600 senior teachers. A number of the secondary jailed teachers have been dismissed for having porn on their classroom computers. No investigations are done other than to accuse the teacher. This means that no attention is paid to when the pix were downloaded, that is before or after the teacher received the computer and teachers are judged guilty no matter who downloaded what. Is there anyone who cannot fathom that secondary students can bypass the district’s firewall and access such sites?
As a teacher, our national organizations must insist that this issue be addressed.
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Diane,
It was a fantastic article, but I wish it has been longer and in more depth. I assume SA limited your space because of their own restrictions? I was used to articles there being some of the most dense and lengthy. . . maybe it has changed.
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Robert Rendo, I was given a limit of 500 words by Scientific American. Did my best.
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You succeeded, by all means, but you merited a much larger word count . . . .
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More about LAUSD’s iPad project:
http://www.citeworld.com/tablets/22178/ipad-los-angeles-unified-school-district
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Diane’s short article is the only flash of independent thought in this whole anti-scientific infomercial. Here’s a much longer section of Scientific American’s big “Learning in the Digital Age” spread.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-big-data-taking-teachers-out-lecturing-business
Instead of a scientific inquiry, it presents its breathless prediction of the sure-to-come success of New York City adaptive-learning start-up Knewton, which suddenly took control of Arizona State University’s math instruction this past spring term. How did this certainty arise?
Does it help to know that, “In May, Knewton announced a partnership with Macmillan Education, a sister company to Scientific American”? Does it help us to understand that Scientific American and also Nature are now acting as marketing agents for Macmillan?
Please read the whole article, colleagues. It concludes with some arrogance that must be seen to be believed, so I’ll quote at length:
“It is far from clear whether concerned parents and scorned instructors are enough to stop the march of big data on education. “The reality is that it’s going to be done,” says Eva Baker, director of the Center for the Study of Evaluation at the University of California, Los Angeles.”
“Sufficiently advanced testing is indistinguishable from instruction. In a fully adaptive classroom, students will be continually assessed, with every keystroke and mouse click feeding a learner profile. High-stakes exams could eventually disappear, replaced by the calculus of perpetual monitoring.”
“Teachers could come around, too. Arizona State’s executive vice provost Phil Regier believes they will, at least: “I think a good majority of the instructors would say this was a good move. And by the way, in three years 80 percent of them aren’t going to know anything else.”
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Paul Horton just put up an excellent article on the history and social psychology of teaching machines. He discusses Phil McRae’s work on adaptive learning products. It’s over on Edweek, on Cody’s blog:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/07/troubles_ahead_for_gatopia.html
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Might we think about books or periodicals as a type of teaching machine, especially for students that, in the words of another poster in another thread, “are the kind of children who could be taught by a monkey with a textbook.”?
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Machine…no. Teaching tool…yes.
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Machines are just tools.
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But all tools are not machines.
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True.
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No, the book just lets you read it, whoever you are. It doesn’t think it knows your personal abilities or limitations. Are we trying to understand this thing, or just roll through the same old talking points?
I used self-paced “programmed” texts to study calculus and Russian when I was in high school. There were answers and explanations in a sidebar, that you could cover up with a bookmark while you worked the problems. I was in control of turning the pages.
In this instance, we propose to put untested algorithms in charge of what a child is required to labor over, and what he can see or try, on the argument that the Big Data machines can turn a (supposedly) massive statistical data set back around, and apply it accurately to each child’s individual mind. The truth about this matters, because the child will be “held accountable” to the same machine’s assessments.
You combine the words “teaching” and “economist” in your screen name. If you were either of those things, you’d care enough to actually discuss the questions before us here.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506366/questions-surround-software-that-adapts-to-students/
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I am very serious about this. Books were the first step away from the oral tradition which required teachers to educate students. With books, or periodicals, students could educate themselves. A computer algorithm is essencially a book that allows students to take a non-linear path through the material. It also allows students to educate themselves, no doubt working better in some disciplines than in others.
You are concerned that students are facing “untested algorithms”, much like early books that did not think to put answers and explanations in the sidebar to be covered up by a bookmark. Would you object to tested algorithms as well? Ones where the student was in control? Is your objection to this approach to education just that the algorithms are poorly written as of now or is it that there will never be a good algorithm?
Finally, students are held accountable by teachers almost every day. There is evidence that teacher determined grades do not reflect the level of mastery of the student (see http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/why-girls-do-better-in-school-010212/). Having an algorithm asses the student might result in an interesting alternative view of the student.
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