This is something I don’t understand about technology. The upgrade–no matter what the program–is usually less satisfactory than the current program. I remember many years ago, I had mastered a writing program called Wordperfect and was very happy with it. It disappeared and was replaced by Word. I thought I should have been able to choose. I wasn’t.
Now Apple has upgraded the software, and the upgrade has made my iPad unusable. I used to blog on my iPad, but since I upgrade to the new software, I can’t copy and paste. If I copy an URL, I can’t paste it. I get whatever I copied the last time and I can’t get rid of it. Since the upgrade, nothing seems to work right on the iPad. I get frequent messages asking me to sign in to iCloud, which I don’t want to do. My iPad brain seems to be severely damaged by the upgrade.
WordPress.com, which hosts this blog, keeps asking me to upgrade to its new “posting experience.” I won’t do it. I know it will be a step backward. Without my permission, they “upgraded” the statistics page, and I am now overwhelmed with data I don’t want or need but they forgot to include the total number of page views, which I like to see.
What can I say? I must be a Luddite. I don’t need to reinvent myself every six months. Some things should stay the same for a whil
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just another example of the power of the free market.
Tongue in cheek Dienne?
That there is no such thing as ‘an invisible hand of the free market’, should be common knowledge by now.
There is however, ‘a hidden hand behind our corrupt markets here in this country’.
Exactly.
EXACTLY!
i use iphoto librRIES FOR YEARS AND SUDDENLY, EVERYTHING I DID IS difficult to find. Of course, they got rid of i web which I used and idisc.
They are undependable.
I don’t upgrade anymore, but with yosemite, m old iphoto librariesl not work. I have 50 thosusand photos there!
I am running into the same problem with Apple. I am unable to keep using the programs that work just fine for my purposes unless I purchase an upgrade, in my case a whole new computer. It is a business plan designed to force customers to continue to buy product in order to continue. I agree that the product is not necessarily better.
It’s the same with my android phone. There are constant updates that are useless to me and ruin what I was doing prior to that! At school, we were asked to learn all the new technology only to have to forget that (just as I figured it out) and learn something new. This was required (or so I thought because the principal had it in for everyone who was hired before she was) and so it was ongoing. Change for the sake of change is simply a waste of valuable time.
The result: exhaustion, frustration, anxiety attacks, sleeplessness, worsening health, and retirement. I tried to do it all…and never felt sufficient or adequate. All because I didn’t grow up glued to a XBox.
Know the feeling. The frequency of fixes, downloads, upgrades, requests for passwords has me boggled. My new iphone is filled with junk. My ipod is really a pain. It cannot cut/paste either, or if so, there is nothing intuitive about that process. I am also chronically embarrased by the automatic spell checker and/or angered by having to replace words it anticipated I should use…but did not want to use.
Now…. this sounds like you are coming of age as teacher who is data-driven.
” I am now overwhelmed with data I don’t want or need but they forgot to include the total number of page views, which I like to see.”
I don’t upgrade either. Many of the upgrades break my links and I cannot sync. They just want me to purchase more stuff. I refuse. Think about how this kind of greed and silliness affects online testing and courses. I’d rather have a REAL person.
Upgrades almost always use more computer resources, especially RAM.
That usually makes the device run slower.
In some cases, the “upgrade” does not even work with older hardware.
They used to make software backward compatible but I don’t think they even bother with that any more in many (if not most) cases.
These companies (hardware and software) are all in cahoots. They want you to keep buying new stuff.
..also, new versions of software usually have lots of bugs and it takes a while for the companies to fix them.
And in the case of Microsoft, they are forever fixing them with the “patch of the day”
So-called “education reform” often works the same way too—they “fix” what isn’t broken and call it an “improvement”—
Until they “upgrade,” er, “improve” the “improvement”—
Which lasts until the next “improvement.”
What doesn’t change is the metric: the bottom line is color coded—black is good, red is bad.
Even simpler than a letter grading system for school systems or VAManiacal categories for teachers.
Genuine improvements? Go to the website of Lakeside School [Bill Gates and his own two children.] So far they haven’t “fixed” the “problem” of a low student-to-teacher ratio. This must be especially troubling since class size is of no concern when you have a great teacher in every classroom. *Just ask Mr. Bill!*
Trouble is, Mr. Gates isn’t troubled by this trouble being a trouble because it’s not a trouble at all—it’s a feature, not a bug, of Lakeside School. Read his speech of 9-23-2005 to his alma mater. And ponder the magic that is Mr. Bill “Stack Ranking” Gates: the solutions for the troubling troubles for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN don’t apply to HIS OWN CHILDREN.
Inquiring minds want to know why…
😎
Gates is a bug, not a feature.
SomeDAM Poet:
I am sure Mr. Gates could give you one fine retort, just like Curly (of the Three Stooges) did in THREE LITTLE TWIRPS:
“Hmmm, I resemble that remark.”
That’ll teach ya!
😎
“Gates is a bug” That is too kind. I think Gates is the plague virus.
The funny thing is, one can say exactly that about education reform forced on you by a major “manufacturer”.
I also haven’t been using WordPress’s latest upgrades. I’ve also learned that if I use Explorer or FireFox with WordPress, my options are limited and sometimes difficult to use, but when I’m using Google Chrome, WordPress works better and easier, so I publish new posts only through Google Chrome and keep my fingers crossed they won’t mess it up so it becomes as difficult as Explorer and FireFox.
It all depends on who paid to sync.
As far as WordPress goes, bookmark the following link:
☞ https://inquiryintoinquiry.wordpress.com/wp-admin/
That takes you to a page where the “Posts” tab on the left hand margin gets you to the old “Add New” editor. It’s a little more bother to edit old posts from there, you have to use the “All Posts” tab and search for your old post. If it’s a minor edit I usually just go ahead and use the new, not so improved editor.
For handy access to the old stats page, bookmark this link:
☞ https://wordpress.com/my-stats/
Sorry, you have to substitute your own blog’s name in the middle of that wp-admin link:
☞ https://***/wp-admin/
Yahoo!’s latest email upgrade involved putting all emails in a back-and-forth thread under one email. So if you send a message to Sally on Tuesday and she replies on Wednesday and you reply again on Thursday, all three emails will be on Thursday. Further, since you both originated and most recently replied, the email will be listed as from “me…me”. Trying to find that email you sent Sally on Tuesday can be fun. It’s even more fun when you have a group email going, because if someone replies only to you, you can no longer reply to the whole group, only that person, without putting the others back into the thread. And the send button is at the bottom of the email, which may be a long way to scroll down. But with all of that, I’m finally getting used to it, so it must be about time to upgrade again.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
This sums up the constant shifting of data platforms, educational software, and grade books that teachers have to learn, relearn, and eventually forget as school districts buy, upgrade, replace and dump. I’m astounded by the money spent in this area without cohesive and long term planning. As a teacher and wife to an Apple software engineer, I can attest that both fields suffer from a disconnect with the common user- in the field of education this is the average teacher and student. There exists a culture in the tech industry as well as educational bureaucrats that technological novelty + more features is equal to improvement. The designers appreciate the improvements, while the vast majority of users do not. I adopt technology slowly and thoughtfully. I try to use systems that have been around for a long time and whose companies will not fold, and I am always wary of updates.
maestramalinche: I am that you have been taken off all the “right” email lists.
Look, the rheephorm outlook is not hard to understand. Want to pick out the rheephormster in every group? Just ask them about the different STAR TREK movies and tv series. When someone remarks that “The Borg were given a bad name—what’s wrong with standardizing everybody into a collective that thinks and acts the same?”—
You’ve hit pay dirt, er, the $tudent $ucce$$ zealot.
Your local neighborhood KrazyTA. Always glad to lend a hand.
😎
P.S. Sometimes you can also find this tattoo on, er, not visible body parts: “Se me chispoteó” [basically “I messed up”]. One of the famous savings of that renowned Mexican superhero of yesteryear, El Chapulín Colorado [The Red Grasshopper].
I was a fan of Lal, Data’s Android daughter who had stirring feelings of love that overran her data systems (Star Trek Next Generation). Continuing to love ourselves and our students in the shallow corporate educational world is breaking us. We are human. We do not compute.
As far as Word and Necrosoft Offal go, download a free copy of LibreOffice:
☞ https://www.libreoffice.org/
It does everything the above do in a far less Gatesian way and you can’t beat the price.
I’d take the iPad to an Apple store and ask for help.
Oh Diane, This is not in the least being a Luddite! You are completely right. Apple has done the same kind of retrograde “upgrade” SYSTEM-WIDE by removing the “Save as…” function in the File Menu. Google has done the same thing by making the scroll bar disappear when not in use, and return only with unpredictable and mysterious motions…
These machines should be our helpmeets, not our masters.
This obsession with newness and change that technology breeds, and its expense, relate to the transition I made over the last few years from being identified as an Educational Technologist to becoming a Teaching Artist. I want to help provide students with self-directed and collaborative learning experiences through string games, storytelling, theater, and movement. Technology can be a great helpmeet to education, but remember: Whenever a student is working at an electronic device as part of a lesson at school, the important question is, “Who’s telling the device what to do?” If the kids are not creating and responding in their own voices, it’s likely indoctrination or commercial propaganda being dispensed.
I’m in complete agreement. And while we’re at it in regards to upgrades, none of the states that “upgraded” to CCSS needed that so called upgrade either!
LAUSD dumped a simple user friendly grade book for another my final year. I saw no advantage. If in ten years a student decides to contest a grade, all the district will find are my final grades. The admin did not have time to check what I turned in. I kept my paperwork at home and did not put it in the computer. My job required too much time to spend time learning yet another bungled computer program. KISS and user friendly the first time.
People are in thrall of the data that can be collected, at least people whose job it is to collect data. I got told by one administrator that one of my students didn’t make enough progress fast enough. The student was moved to my class because another teacher could not handle him. It took a few months but we finally won him over, but there were many days when he would disappear at the halfway break. (He finally told us to keep his backpack, so he had to come back!) He was functionally illiterate and had a long way to go. (He was in high school.) I took him because I could connect with almost any kid, especially with the help of a parapro who had lived many of their struggles. It didn’t matter that the reading program I was using was never up and running until well after the planned start (6 weeks, 2 months, 2 months). The last two years were “full” years in which computers were not available for two months, print resources had to be copied (books too expensive). and class rosters were not set, one year until January. Somehow the administration could not figure out how to schedule kids for a two period block with their new computer system. And yet progress was determined as if we had had a full year. Those computers sure could spit out the data, just not the context, which was ignored.
Indeed we all feel your pain and can tell our own individual stories of technology “upgrades” and that now forced but ever-increasing requirement to upgrade to the point of “planned obsolescence”. Apple loves to upgrade upgrade upgrade with infuriating annoyances without great changes that one “can’t live without”. Meanwhile the computer is at some point (oh at about 4 years old…) too old to handle all the upgrades and miracles of miracles… it is time to get a new computer even though the one you have could work perfectly well if only with the “lesser upgraded” softer ware!
Luddite? Relax, Diane, I know Luddites. I grew up around Luddites. Luddites were friends of mine.
Diane, you’re no Luddite.
If you WERE a Luddite, this blog would not exist and I would not be typing these comments to you in response to your very cogent piece.
Happy Memorial Day weekend, Diane. You truly are an American original and national treasure! And we love you.
When I read the headline “Why Is the Upgrade Less Satisfactory…” I associated it to state testing in NJ. Education Commissioner David Hespe asserted at fall 2014 State Board Ed meeting that PARCC would be better than NJ HSPA and ASK.
While I think we’d be better off without mass, every year standardized testing–I’d be curious if NJ teachers would pick PARCC or prior tests in a “forced choice” scenario.
If you were scheduled to be executed by the state, would you choose the electric chair, the gas chamber, hanging or the “more humane” lethal injection?
Would it really matter? Wouldn’t you soon be dead regardless?
The old standardized tests and the new CCSS aligned tests shared one vital feature in common: they were both designed to supposedly “prove” how our schools, our students, and especially our teachers were all “failing”—thus creating the conditions for a private, corporate takeover of K-12 education in every school district in the country.
The only difference between the new—and truly odious—SBAC and PAARC and the plethora of awful state from previous years is that the new CCSS tests make a bundle for Pearson and other companies pushing for all of this, and serve the goal of privatizing our schools far more effectively, efficiently and with much greater speed.
I remember that exactly 20 years ago, in 1995, very shortly after the release of the new “Internet Ready” Windows 95, Bill Gates said in an interview that there was nothing wrong with continuing to use the older versions of Microsoft software, that it would still work just fine for the purposes it had been designed for and that no one was being ‘forced’ to upgrade to a newer version of any Microsoft program.
Gates sounded so credible, so certain and so reassuring.
Just as he did a few years later when he absolutely assured us that all he wanted was the best for all American children when it came to education, and that only through charters, privatization, Common Core and constant, excessive, high pressure, high stakes, standardized testing, could this perfect education nirvana be achieved.
Kind of funny and ironic that Gates would care so little about own children that he would allow them to be opted out of this “substantial improvement” and “far superior” program of “Education Reform” that he, Dad, has already funded to the tune of at least 1 billion dollars and counting…
You have identified an interesting convergence of factors! Ironic indeed, but funny in a sad, revealing way.
As far as Word Perfect, I am from Utah, where Word Perfect originated. The company was bought out by Microsoft, and then, of course, killed in favor of Word, Word in inferior and much less intuitive, but here we are.
That’s the problem with a lot of these upgrades. My district just forced us to upgrade our email system so that people can access email on their smartphones. I don’t have a smartphone, and I had just figured out the last upgrade, which was only about a year ago, but I didn’t have a choice. The new email requires three more steps to access than before, and the upgrade erased all my contacts. I’m SO sick of it. If it works well, WHY upgrade, especially when the “upgrade” works less well?
I didn’t even have a phone until the year before I “left” teaching. I remember the office asking for my cell phone number, so they could call me in my classroom. Thank goodness I didn’t have one. Just what I would have needed: to be interrupted by calls from the office. I figured if it was important enough to interrupt my class, they could do it the old fashion way and come do it in person. I didn’t tell them when I got one (for emergencies). Heck if I was going to pay for them to use my minutes. Judging from the quality of PA messages and the number of times someone came to my class, I made the right decision. I don’t have a smartphone and don’t plan to get one any time soon. I see so many people glued to the screen that it is scary.
I had a perfectly fine laptop from my school district. Microsoft got rid of XP so I have to get rid of the laptop. What a waste, especially when I have only 2 working computers in my classroom for 32 students. Someone is making money.
One has to ask why Windows Xp, 7, 8 ,9 10?The answer. They have nothing else to do and each upgrade makes a ton of money. We are left with a mess and they get rich and completely try to buy education. Seems to me all they know how to do is mess up what already works, both in tech and education . Egos gone amuck.
As one who works in technology I can say that the “upgrade” is unfortunately, not about the consumer but more about the product developer. Software upgrades drive hardware upgrades, meaning if your hardware suddenly doesn’t support the software upgrade then you must buy more gear. It’s no coincidence. And Apple is the best at “upgrading” their stock shares.
It’s like Windows Update program that eats up cache to slow down your computer every time you receive its notification. That’s part of reason I’m beginning to hate Microsoft Windows.
Well Word is FAR better than Displaywriter and Excel is better than Lotus 1-2-3… but the various iterations of Microsoft products seem needlessly complicated unless you are, in fact, a rocket scientist…
Software is the most complex human creation, ever. Having lived in that world, it is difficult to get everything to hang together. Often, programs get to the point fixing one feature, breaks many more. Plus feature creep is driven by companies trying to balance customers who want a product specifically for their needs versus a general offering that takes advantage of economies of scale. Whenever a company releases a major upgrade or new product, they also run the risk of losing customers to competitors. If the cost of the upgrade exceeds the cost of switching providers to customers, companies may lose revenue and the all important market share. That is why we see Windows 10 and not a newly named OS like Microsoft Wonder. These “upgrades” are a way to move customers to new products.
Diane, you should know that WordPerfect is still very much alive. Go to Corel.com and I’m sure you can find a version to meet your needs. No, I don’t work for them, but I like it too, and I was dismayed at how Word was jammed down everyone’s throats back in the day.
Everyone should read “The Upgrade Game” in the June issue of Scientific American. Author David Pogue notes, for example, that Photoshop has been upgraded 20 times since introduction and that if a person bought every upgrade, they’d have spent more than $4,000. But more than money and the difficulty of learning new and often obtuse ways of doing things is at stake: Programs and operating systems that don’t support all their previous versions eventually make it impossible to access stored data and graphics. Today, there are already many corporations, scientific groups and governmental entities that have lost ready access to information that was stored using programs, operating systems, and hardware that are no longer supported or available. What will this mean for society if this information needs to be retrieved for legal or scientific reasons? In effect, all this upgrading is lobotomizing our society and our institutions, so society has a legitimate interest in making certain that upgrades to operating systems and essential programs, such as word processors, continue to support all their predecessors.
What is scarier is that now there is an upgrade for vaccinations.
Previously they had HPV vaccinations that helped with 2 types of HPV viruses out of 40, but then the studies discovered that if you took vaccinations for 2 viruses it actually increased your chances of getting sick with another types of HPV viruses. So now they created a vaccination patch which helps total of 9 types of HPV viruses and recommend to patch up and upgrade your immune system. So if you took an old version of the vaccination before you are actually more at risk than if you took none, so the suggestion is to apply a “fix”.
I was very much moved by reading the recent article about this –
I think the article was in LA times like a month ago but I was not able to find by googling the link right now. It was actually advertising and praising the new vaccination Gardasil 9 because it will “fix” the shortcomings of the previous versions (there was a version called Gardasil 4 in between but nothing was said about it).
One aspect of this discussion which has not come up yet–there are real security threats, and updates–sometimes even upgrades–that are actually essential (sometimes) for dealing with them.
I still use WordPerfect. It beats the daylights out of Word anyday.