Former Governor Bob Wise and the Alliance for Excellent Education released a video touting “personalized learning” as the key to academic success. He speaks in the foreground of what he says is the Rio Olympics (actually the footage is from 2012, according to the credits). A short video shows students engaged in “personalized learning,” some of which appears to be centered on a computer.

Let’s say this much for the ad: at least it is not insulting like the one created by Michelle Rhee and StudentsFirst in 2012, which showed a flabby American man falling on his face while competing in a women’s event and said he represented American students. It was shown on national television during the Olympics and was highly demeaning to our nation and our students.

Bob Wise partnered with Jeb Bush in creating a document called “Digital Learning Now,” which claimed that learning online was the secret to high achievement for everyone. None of its assertions had any evidence behind them, and the report was financed by the tech industry.

“Personalized learning” is a very problematic concept these days. Most people think it means that the teacher and the student work closely together, and the teacher understands the student’s needs.

But in the education industry, “personalized learning” means computer-based instruction. In theory, the computer knows the student well. The student and the computer interact and collaborate, so they are close friends.

The paid journalistic touting of computer-based learning is intensifying. I can’t keep up with all the articles that promote machine learning and mislabel it “personalized” learning.

There is nothing “personal” about learning from a machine. The machine doesn’t know you. It stores your data, but it has no feelings, no emotions, no empathy. It doesn’t like you. It doesn’t love you, it doesn’t dislike you. It is indifferent. If your mother dies, it won’t feel any sympathy for you. It is a machine. Whatever you call it, please don’t say it is “personalized” to you. It’s not.