Veteran teacher Nancy Bailey warns about the danger that technology poses to child development. In her post, she reviews the various efforts to “disrupt” learning and reviews NancyCarlsson-Paige’s newly released toolkit on technology and early childhood education.
She writes:
Public schools continuously change to keep up with progress. Technology has much to offer. But the idea that instruction should be disrupted using technology is putting students and the country at risk. It destroys the public school curriculum that has managed to educate the masses for decades.
Disruption is a troubling word when referring to public schooling.
Gradual change works better with students. Schools should be warm places where students can positively interact with other children and caring adults. Changes implemented gradually are more comfortable for teachers and students.
Technology is a helpful tool, but it won’t provide that sense of stability. It’s a cold machine. School districts push technology over teachers. They don’t stop to think about what it will mean to children and their development.
We don’t know what the future effects of technology will be. How will students learn what they need for college and career when they’ve experienced little but online instruction?
Most people recognize that continuous screen use is problematic. Transforming public schools to where students face even more online time all day makes little sense.
Early childhood teachers express concern that tech is invading preschool education. We know that free play is the heart of learning.
But programs, like Waterford Early Learning, advertise online instruction including assessment for K-2. Their Upstart program advertises, At-home, online kindergarten readiness program that gives 4- and 5-year-old children early reading, math, and science lessons.
Technology is directed towards babies too! What will it mean to a child’s development if they stare at screens instead of picture books?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Using technology is very important in education but with certain limitations.
Why is technology in education “very important”? What can only be done with technology that can’t be done any other way? Besides, of course, learning technology itself, which, frankly, hardly seems to be a problem for any kids of any age, gender, socio-economic status, etc.
Why do you think the tech gurus themselves are enrolling their kids in tech-free schools like Waldorf? Aren’t they worried their kids will “fall behind” technologically?
YES to the strong response: WHY is technology in education “very important?” I was taught without technology and know that I was very well educated. I then taught for many years without technology, and know that I was not a “better” teacher once technology came along to invade schools.
Kids don’t come preloaded with digital literacy. We need to guide them. And we can only guide them if we as teachers become experts.
Teachers do not have to become “experts” to guide children through digital literacy.
Instead, teachers must be treated like the professionals they should be just like teachers are treated in Finland and the schools should be run from the bottom up by teachers and not billionaires that think they know everything but know very little of anything except how to use money to “BUY” influence and power.
What is digital literacy?
If what you mean is how to use technology, most kids today know far more than most adults.
But what they are almost completely lacking in is an understanding of how the technology works and how to do without it when it stops working.
I learned math in the days before Pcs and iPhones and all the rest and did not suffer from it. In fact, I would argue that I probably learned it better than most students today because I learned how to do things ,”by hand” that most students today could not do without graphing calculators and software programs that do statistics, integrals, solving equations, etc.
In a word, technology has become a crutch. I suppose a crutch is a sort of tool, but that’s certainly not the best use of technology.
Dienne
Whenever I hear that technology is necessary for education — especially for science education — I immediately think of Einstein who developed all of his ideas with nothing more than paper and pencil.
At the time he developed his theories of special and general relativity, most of the technology did not even exist to test the theories. In some cases (dg, with gravitational waves), it took a century to develop the technology. And Einstein envisioned all of it in his head with virtually no technology at all!
The idea that all this tech being pushed on the schools is somehow necessary to educate students for the 21st century is just dumb.
Once you learn to think and to do things without technology, it’s relatively simple to quickly come up to speed on the use of technology and you have an immediate advantage over people who never learned without it because you have some idea about the limitations and pitfalls of the technology and you can figure out whether what the technology is telling you is in the right ball park or just complete nonsense.
I spent a good part of my career working as a software engineer in R&D and the most technically capable people I worked with were NOT people with degrees in computer “science” or other “technology” fields like IT but people with degrees in science and even philosophy who had learned how to THInK. You can use technology without thinking at all — and sadly, lots of people do.
People like Haawvid Business School professor Clay Christensen who “invented” the “disruptive innovation” business model don’t care anything about child development or even about people.
All they care about is how to sell the most stuff and they don’t even care whether that stuff has value or is pure crap.
Oh, tsk, tsk, SDP, of course they care.
Pure crap is a lot cheaper to make.
Recognizing the “throw away” model of economics — making things not to be fixed but to be used up and thrown out. That’s exactly what has been hitting our city with the portfolio schools model. I appreciated hearing one anti-reform activist in a hard hit part of our town saying “They closed our traditional high school like it was a K-mart.”
You’re right
The crappier the better.
That also applies to Harvard business school profs.
The billionaires are lining up to line their pockets with social impact investing. Their targets are pre-K students. In Peter Greene’s recommended reading is an article describing how California is aligning with big data and business types to provide a cheap preschool “experience” for the state’s poor children. It is against the nature of the young child to be plopped down in front of a computer screen for long periods, particularly when we do not know the health hazards this may present. https://wrenchinthegears.com/2018/11/11/readynation-pritzker-and-newsom-get-ready-for-the-next-gold-rush/
Bad for children.
Bad for the country.
But great for the profits that have bloated the wealth and power of the 0.1 percent.
Teachers must not become Luddites. Although I am reluctant to use the word disrupt, we can leverage technology in very powerful ways. Take rural schools, for instance. They can access a variety of resources and course materials that are otherwise inaccessible. Students can learn problem solving and math by tinkering with a Raspberry Pi kit or Kano resources. Students can present information using infographics created on Vengage or access millions of historical documents through the LoC website. Teachers need to embrace this stuff and tell others how to use it properly before they do that work for us.
The point is that technology is a tool, not a substitute for a teacher.
I’m not saying this is what you are doing, but I would point out that it’s a logical fallacy to claim or even imply that because teachers criticize the way technology is being marketed for and used in schools, they are Luddites.
That is precisely the sort of framing that the tech companies and deformer’s use to dismiss anyone who criticizes them.
Technology is a tool. The second it becomes something more is the second people should legitimately question it’s use
The sentiment of the original post seems to be that good education and uses of technology are exclusive. There is somehow an inherent benefit to learning math the “old way” or some kind of quaint reference to a golden age of education that really did not exist. I’ve worked with numerous educators who don’t even know how to properly take a picture of a student work sample and share it with parents, to print a PDF, or create their own handouts. I’m sorry, but if you can’t do those things, then it’s time to step aside. All teachers need to become familiar with VR/AR technology, coding kits, circuit-building kits, with mobile scanning apps to track student progress, QR codes, virtual models of a cell. If schools cannot afford expensive chemistry equipment, then there are digital chemistry demonstrations and labs kids can use. Minecraft is a great way to work with kids and build some pretty cool projects. I hear no mention of that, all I hear is this nebulous and nefarious reference to “technology,” which is similar to the conversation a hundred or more years ago when kids switched from chalk slates to pencils.
I’d like to hear about some of your thoughts on beneficial resources that are not some generic reference to “technology.” We can and should be very specific in our criticisms of “technology.” Referencing it as some ambiguous lump makes teachers look like hysterical Luddites. We can certainly levy a boatload of critique on Summit, for instance, or the PARCC, edTPA, data tracking/mining, or student privacy concerns. But that should be kept separate from considering productive uses of, say, OSMO kits, Cosmo or Sphero robots, podcasting, and other really cool things. I would hope that every educator in this space who cherish the good old days also reconsider their assigning of homework, or keeping curriculum in silos, or even separate grade levels, or traditional school calendars, which are all deeply embedded traditions that should be strongly re-evaluated.
Thank you and Diane. This is the point of the post. It is amazing how some individuals turn it into the Luddite argument. I like tech. But it is not a replacement for teachers or play when it comes to small children. And there is no proof that tech alone will suffice at educating all students best.
I agree that technology is no substitute for live teachers. But I am hesitant to “tar the whole concept with the same brush” . I am an IT professional, and I have worked for a university TV station. Long distance learning, with the teacher some miles away from the students and connected by two way video, has been used for many decades. I hope to see this move on down to the K-12 level.
I would like to see a “mix” of tech and live teaching.
Example: French lessons. The students could have a live teacher to practice pronunciation etc. Then a session on the computer to study grammar, vocabulary, etc. Then a group session on SKYPE, with high school kids in Paris, France.
Of course it is true that “things don’t teach, teachers teach”. BUT- Teachers should be equipped with the tools to fire up the desires of the students, and impart the knowledge.
When I was in 5th grade, we had one-way educational TV. When the TV was on, and the lecturer was delivering, the class was stone-silent, and hung on every word.
Here in Fairfax county, the school system owned two UHF television channels, and conducted Latin classes, and other subjects, where there were not enough teachers to conduct the class live.
Ms. Ravitch,
I was first mezmerized by the computer technology back in the 80’s, but it never really replaced the novel, so I didn’t linger long, except for it being a hi-tech typewriter. Our district has “kept up with the Joneses” when it has come to computers and, indeed, they do many wonderful activities and perform many primary functions for 90% of people who use them (me included.) In my English class last Friday, one of my students thanked me for NOT using a computer (Chromebook) because ALL the others (history, math, science) have dedicated their classes to be conducted for the majority of their classes with those computers. Kids are sick of them.