I was invited to write about education and technology by EdSurge, which specializes in ed tech. I decided to do it in hopes that my words of caution would reach entrepreneurs and enthusiasts who had not given much thought to the downsides of the tech mania.
I pointed to five major risks. The first was the invasion of student privacy.
I began like this:
At any given moment in the day, I am attached to my cellphone, my iPad or my computer. As a writer, I was an early convert to the computer. I began writing on a TRS-80 from Radio Shack in 1983 on wonderful writing software called WordPerfect, which has mysteriously disappeared. I had two TRS-80s, because one of them was always in repair. I love the computer for many reasons. I no longer had to white out my errors; I no longer had to retype an entire article because of errors. My handwriting is almost completely illegible. The computer is a godsend for a writer and editor.
I have seen teachers who use technology to inspire inquiry, research, creativity and excitement. I understand what a powerful tool it is.
But it is also fraught with risk, and the tech industry has not done enough to mitigate the risks.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
YES. And, in my experience a repeatedly overwhelming problem with using technology as it has suddenly become available to schools is the confusion created by having little cohesive understanding of said technology as it is being adamantly pushed into schools. Trainings are often sporadic and poorly led, software and hardware may not match up at all, those who can fix computers are in very short supply, new teachers who understand the newest way of communicating are not patient with the system in place, etc. and etc. When those in charge force the use of technology but do little to prevent or mitigate the problems likely to arise, chaos and blame follow.
LikeLike
“As a writer, I was an early convert to the computer. I began writing …”
Yep, that was the reason I was an early convert to the computer and spent more than $3k for my first computer back in the early 1980s, because the computer made writing so much easier. And my handwriting is mostly illegible too.
I think using computers to write is pretty much the only thing the computer is good for.
Except for a few sites like Diane’s.
Research can be done the old-fashioned way in libraries with less risk that extremist trolls and Russian or North Korean or Iranian or Alt-Right bots/minions are going to spread confusion, misinformation, conspiracy theories, and lies to influence elections and legislation.
Facebook and other social media sights are literally destroying civilization and culture and creating a world fractured into tribal groups that tend to hate and/or distrust everyone else.
Anonymous bullies/trolls around the world are allowed almost total freedom through the internet’s social media to torment others even driving some to kill themselves. Before the internet, these psychos were pretty much ignored by the communities they lived in and they were cut off from other psychos. Now they are forming tribes through the internet and even ganging up on innocent people to terrorize them.
Face to face friendships and even families are fracturing because of addictions to endless texting with internet friends that they will probably never meet face to face. For instance, “at any given time throughout the day, approximately 660,000 drivers are attempting to use their phones while behind the wheel of an automobile. … Nearly 330,000 injuries occur each year from accidents caused by texting while driving. … 11 teens die every day as a result of texting while driving.”
https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html
LikeLike
Lloyd,
I too like the computer for writing long pieces that need multiple revisions. It did free me. But other uses JAIL me.
And…
Agree: “Facebook and other social media sights are literally destroying civilization and culture and creating a world fractured into tribal groups that tend to hate and/or distrust everyone else.”
Thank you. No one even looks another in the eye will having a conversation … too busy looking at the device. Thus, not much sinks in and messages get misunderstood and not even heard.
Have you had other run right into you while grocery shopping or elsewhere because someone is looking at their device? OY!
How about trying to check out and the clerk is on the phone? Crazy!
What about trying to have a serious conversation with another and their cell phone DINGS and they stop everything in response to that DING?
And what about those people who think that they can interrupt a SCHEDULED meeting for some lame text from ????.
Thanks for the link: re: accidents and texting.
With all that “dinging and ringing,” have we become more and more like Pavlov’s dog and just don’t think much anymore?
LikeLike
Grace VanderWaal, music genius and child prodigy at age 12, (she turns 14 this month) who is still on her first national, sold out concert tour, wrote and performed a song that is on her LP that had a line in it about turning off the mobile phone and paying attention to the world around you. In an interview, she explained how that line ended up in the song … it was because during a meeting with the producers helping her create her first LP album, one of them was so busy texting that he had tuned out of the meeting.
Grace said she wanted to slap that phone out of his hand. He was an adult. She was 13, but she was a superstar with millions of followers and a growing list of awards and probably could have gotten away with doing that.
But, instead, she added that line to the song they were working on that was about shutting off your cell phone and joining the world you are in.
The song’s name is “So Much More Than This” and that line says, “Close your phone and breathe in the air”
LikeLike
THANKS, Lloyd. Indeed: “Close the phone and breathe in the air.”
LikeLike
Computers are pretty good for calculating, as well. Particularly long and complex calculations, or those done on a routine basis.
I once thought (before 1980) that this was the only use of processing power that wasn’t a waste. But, then, storage capacity grew and grew, so why not writing as well?
The computer is a tool (like an impact drill). It does a good job as a tool, but it is not a ‘friend’. Nor, is it a teacher or a father or a mother. People who think tools are humans, or (conversely) humans are tools are very, very sick.
LikeLike
I agree, but HAL 9000 from “2001 A Space Odyssey” probably wouldn’t agree.
LikeLike
Agree, Diane. I have to get away from electronics or it makes my mind and soul MUSH. Much of technology takes us away from keeping our eyes on what is important.
How many can sift through the c—. I admit, I have to be careful, really careful, and don’t always succeed, but have to stay vigilant. Takes so much energy, too.
I know some retired school principals and teachers who have had to deal with the ANGST re: online stuff in the schools and they are so happy they do not have to deal with this kind of pure (fill in the blanks) anymore. All of this online scams take away precious time from more important matters. The delivery of online worksheets, other ridiculous stuff “marketed” as good (but not so great at all), and those TRULY awful, limiting tests costs money and just is an endless stream of profits for the few who know nothing, but act as if they do.
Why don’t these people without any clue go back to school to learn, student teach, and actually earn a teaching certificate? And I don’t mean go to virtual, online schools, which are really (fill in the blanks).
LikeLike
Since Diane’s post is about “The RISKS of Technology in Schools,” I want to share information about an amazing book for young people. Teachers will love this book, too and it will open up lots of useful and meaningful discussions and conversations as well.
Title: MARLEY DAVIS GETS IT DONE: And So Can You by Marley Davis with Siobhan McGowen (Scholastic Press, 2018). In this timely, engaging. and true book, Marley has two chapters which address this issue of social media and protecting oneself (chapter 5), another on reading books and why reading is MORE THAN WORDS (chapter 8), taking action or “Get WOKE” (chapter 6), and talking about books (chapter 10).
ALL the chapters in this book will capture the minds and hearts of its readers. This book not only provides information, but it is also a call to action, but not at all preachy.
We all need to read something good to combat the lunacy.
LikeLike
Oops…CORRECTION: Marley DIAS, not Davis. Sorry. Good thing I checked.
LikeLike
I have been saying and writing the same things for almost 15 years now. I am a technologist that is against the use of technology in education. My dad once called me a professional student. I have been a student, in one form or another, in every decade since the 1960s, mostly part-time. So, I am not an educator but an educatee. I know what works for me and others, from practical experience.
CCSS requires the use computers for instruction and to track everything. No wonder Bill Gates and Michael Dell both pushed for CCSS adoption. Any data collected is an invasion of privacy.
So, I agree with the reasons given here.
By the way there was research done several years ago using cell phones while driving that concluded that hands-free cellphones were not to be used. It is not so much that your hands are busy it is more that your are distracted trying to hold an intelligent conversation. This takes your mind off the road. Multi-tasking is a misnomer. The human brain can focus on only one thing at a time. We are told not to talk to a bus driver as that might distract him or her and cause on accident. Same thing here.
LikeLike
Thank you, schiltz3.
I have actually seen parents give their children their smart phones to keep the fussy children busy. This is not uncommon.
I wondered, “Where are the books? What about paper and pencil? Maybe it’s time to nap?”
Anything other than handing over the smart phone to occupy the child.
LikeLiked by 1 person
More and more little kids entering school having never used crayons.
LikeLike
ciedie aech,
Sooooo SAD. Crayons are cheaper than an electronic device and using crayons to make meaning on paper has far more benefits in the long run re: learning.
LikeLike
I was inspired by Diane’s Dewey post the other day and write the post below, which includes my 2018 interpretation of selected parts of Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed in relation to ed tech, which is truly an unethical sham.
“Dewey:” I believe that the school must represent present life – life as real and vital to the child as that which he carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the play-ground.”
“My 2018 interpretation: Humans develop and learn best from each other. Let the children PLAY, EXPERIMENT, AND DO PROJECTS face-to-face, not virtually.”
http://whatsthebigideaschwartzy.blogspot.com/2018/01/happy-2018-demands-for-our-schools.html
LikeLike
I ❤️ What you wrote. Thank you, Danielle. I 💕 Dewey.
I bet he would think this country has lost its collective mind.
LikeLike
Thank you so much, Yvonne – means a lot!
LikeLike
Welcome, Danielle.
LikeLike
I think Alfie Kohn says it best in this article.
In all the classes I visit there is nothing innovative about it.
The pedagogy is very old school thanks to corporate reform and standards based learning.
Tech is being used as a glorified worksheet. I’m so concerned as this current system us all about rote memory and very simplistic reading skills all tested on the computer.
Here is his great article
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9441396
LikeLike
Thank you, tutucker for Kohn’s article. He’s spot on. Appreciate you posting this great article.
LikeLike
Diane,
Thank you.
LikeLike
The tech industry is serving shareholders, politicians and, alas, voters who don’t want to spend more for education. Technology as it is used now is cheap and fast… but it isn’t good. https://wp.me/p25b7q-22k
LikeLike
“Technology as it is used now is cheap and fast”
Fast, yes, but not cheap when you’re working with a unionized work force that has collective bargaining rights.
At one of the city tech meetings, one of our tech purveyors was introducing and explaining the newly instituted and raised rates that we’d have to pay in order to maintain and upgrade our hardware and software.
One of our best programmers raised his hand and said:
“So…you’ve taken away our pennies a day chalk and talk and replaced it with a medium that’s going to break our school budgets.”
Education isn’t well funded to begin with. Teacher salaries and benefits take up the bulk of the budget. Add the cost of buying and maintaining the ever expanding technology and you’re bound to run into some problems.
LikeLike
Thank you, gitapik for “So…you’ve taken away our pennies a day chalk and talk and replaced it with a medium that’s going to break our school budgets.” YUP, that is what happened. SAD. And if schools didn’t sign up, then the school is blamed for being backwards when in actually they aren’t.
The tech industry has found a way to siphon money for their own bank accounts. BUYER/USER BEWARE!
Plus all this online stuff takes away our focus and distracts us from keeping our eye on the ball … kinda like FAKE NEWS.
Living in today’s society means we all have to be even more vigilant and have excellent c— detectors, which are working all the time.
LikeLike
The guy who I quoted is brilliant and is all for integration of technology into the classroom routine.
That quote, from years ago, is word for word. I remember it like it was 15 minutes ago.You could’ve heard a pin drop. The presenter was completely lost for words and quickly moved on to the changes that we could expect to see in the newest software upgrade.
LikeLike
It’s really very simple:
When the computer was first introduced to education, it was a tool for the teachers to use.
The evolution of the technology has shown a dramatic shift where the makers and sellers are attempting to make the teachers the tool for the technology.
This is not just idle speculation. Nothing is more important than personal experience when it comes to drawing conclusions. I’ve done many tech based professional developments for the teachers at our multiple sites for a very long time. At first many were reluctant, having seen success with their tried and true. But my PDs always involved the integration of the medium so that the kids were still working with familiar hands on tools and interacting with each other, socially. The kids loved it and my colleagues bought in.
Now I’m hearing teachers (excellent teachers) talking about leaving the profession. Their autonomy has been taken away either by scripted textbooks or computer based subscriptions (also scripted). They’re saying that the units/lessons are simplistic, limited, and leave scarce room for attention to the individual needs of the kids (academically and socially). They’re becoming classroom monitors who process paperwork.
“The tech industry is serving shareholders, politicians and, alas, voters who don’t want to spend more for education.”
Spot on, wgerson. I do, however, think that there are some excellent programs out there. I’ve some friends who develop them and have beta tested a few. It’s just that the industry wants to take over the field. Not work within it.
LikeLike
It’s now a BANDWAGON among the deformers…KA-CHING! . Bandwagoning inhibits thoughtful analysis. Sad.
LikeLike
Propaganda Techniques our young should be learning. We should review them, too.
Click to access propaganda.pdf
I learned about propaganda techniques while attending elementary and high school, as well as while taking courses for my undergraduate degree.
What do the students learn about propaganda techniques these DAZE? Or are they idle consumers of the images and sounds coming from the screen and the other online stuff being “stuffed down” their throats?
LikeLike
And so NOW Facebook and Google are admitting that cellphones (and electronic devices at-large) are addictive. Well, gee, isn’t that so big-tobacco-like. I have Chromebooks in my classroom, but rarely use them and I do get insensed having to repeat myself of putting away their “toys” ad infinitem. Many kids are good about it, but many are not. Just like handwriting/penmanship are slowly sinking, thus too will the ability to actually research information from a book source, not just “Google-it.” (“Look, ma, it’s a noun AND a verb!”)
LikeLike
Ed,
Yes, indeed…cell phones and electronic devices are addictive. I see this everywhere. We are being lead around by our noses by those devices and people are unaware of this fact.
LikeLike