I just opened my email and discovered this brilliant post by Audrey Watters, whose critical voice on EdTech is indispensable.
Watters lists the 100 biggest EdTech debacles of the past decade, and seeing them all in one place is astonishing.
What strikes me is the combination of unadulterated arrogance (i.e., chutzpah), coupled with repeated failures.
What is also impressive are the number of entries that were hailed by the media or by assorted journalists, then slipped quietly down the drain, without impairing the reputation of the huckster who took the money and ran.
Again and again, we encounter EdTech start-ups and innovations that are greeted with wild acclaim and hype, but whose collapse is ignored as the parade moves on to the next overpromised miracle technology.
Whatever happened to the promise that half of all courses in school would be taught online by this year (false) or that most colleges and universities would die because of the rise of the MOOC (false)? Why do virtual charter schools make money even though they have horrible outcomes for students (lies, lies, lies)?
This post is stuffed with flash-in-the-pan technological disruptions that planned to “revolutionize” education, from K-12 through higher education but then tanked.
Please read it. Share it with your friends and colleagues.
Lessons: Learn humility. Believe in the power of human beings, not machines designed to replace them. Don’t let them sell you stuff designed to control the brains, emotions, and social development of students. Be wary. Be skeptical. Protect your privacy and the privacy of children.
Protect your intellectual freedom.
Read Audrey Watters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What a tour de force!!!! Thank you, Ms. Watters!
Oh my God, Audrey, Diane is right: What a service you provided by listing all these techno-boondoggles in one place. The list is a mammoth cautionary tale. Thank you!
Media reports that the founder of two “high performing” charter high schools in Wisconsin, who, then, moved on to be the current New York Deputy Chief of Staff of Schools (Chancellor’s office) was arrested today.
He’s a 2017 graduate of Harvard School of Education
Curmuducation acknowledged David Hay for his dumb quote, “testing is teaching” (10-23-2019). Hay claimed the charter schools he founded were models of excellence in personalized learning. The arrogance of Harvard grads distinguishes them.
Not just Harvard grads”
Dropouts too.
Neither Bill Gates nor Mark Zuckerberg graduated.
The arrogance seems to be common among those who matriculate at Harvard.
The Harvard dropouts are the most arrogant!
The entire HGSE is a criminal enterprise, it seems. They should all be arrested for stealing public property, i.e. our schools.
Christine, Poet and Diane- your points are well taken.
I saw that story online yesterday that a very high-ranking official of the NYC DOE was arrested for online soliciting of sex with a minor. As a rule, I don’t post stories about sex scandals.
I respect your selections, Diane.
The founding of charter schools by a person who allegedly doesn’t view the law as a deterrent to behavior is what raised the story to a level of interest for me.
Privatization, for a number of reasons, creates systems that increase risks for enrolled students. High visibility jobs in state capitols and D.C. present opportunities for those with nefarious agendas when they suspect there are opportunities for coercion.
I agree with Mr. Shepherd (and Mr. Rose ) above so please add one more exclamation point to his thank you. What a stunning list.
25 Peter Thiel who said that women voting in a capitalistic democracy was an oxymoron.
Disappointed-
Gates funded SETDA, an organization of department of education employees from all 50 states who promote digital learning and public-private partnerships, didn’t make Watters’ list.
A former SETDA director said the group lobbies government. Who are they lobbying for, themselves, Gates or the private partners who are “gold, silver and strategic”?
Four big themes: Shamelessly dress up schemes to make money in the guise of education benefit; Do anything, anything other than address poverty as the driver of differential achievement; have no scruples (especially, about taking advantage of poor kids or the misuse of public funds for private gain); Unfortunately mass gullibility for PR over evidence.
Yes, the tech schemers have used every PR trick in P.T. Barnum’s book, on the basis of the sound theory that there is a sucker born every minute.
Good grief! Here is an article today by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times on the “Revolution” in the universities brought on by technology (MOOCs).
Calling Audrey Watters!
Revolution Hits the Universities
Friedman also told us (repeatedly) that the Iraq miracle was just around the corner.
He’s one of the most dishonest columnists on the planet, if not THE most dishonest
Friedman is a paid court singer for the oligarchy that runs the New Feudal Order. Tell them how pretty I am, Tom, and how good the disruption’s going to be for them.
On the same day Friedman promotes tech industry hype, their book review features this book about a woman who spent 5 years trying to believe the tech industry’s BS until she couldn’t take it any longer.
As a woman, Wiener felt both conspicuous and invisible, valued for her contribution to “diversity metrics” while her “soft skills” were simultaneously exploited and derided. “I was always trying to be everyone’s girlfriend, sister, mother,” she writes. A male supervisor criticized her “for being a pleaser.” Not everyone, though, was expected to change. When Wiener later informed the same supervisor about a colleague’s sexual comments, he seemed embarrassed but ultimately dismissive. “You know him,” the supervisor said. “That’s just who he is.”
I subscribed to Audrey’s newsletter after a post from this blog a few months ago – and so appreciate her work.
I am halfway down her list of 100 Worst…. and all I can think is, the snake oil salesmen and their marketing practices are alive and well in 2019.
What a depressing, depraved, sometimes entertaining steaming pile of cr*p Ed Tech is!!! This past decade unleashed an endless array of ed tech grifters’ that show no sign of slowing down. Caveat Emptor, educators! My personal favorite, “brain wave headbands.” It sounds like the beginning of a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit.
It’s not just Ed tech that is a scam.
So is Fakebook and so is Google.
And so is a lot of other “high” technology.
Their business plan is to snoop on us and monetize our data.
“Although neither JSTOR nor MIT sought punishment, the federal government prosecuted Swartz anyway, charging him with violating JSTOR’s terms of service by downloading documents to distribute.”
It’s only a half truth to say that MIT did not seek punishment.
MIT not only did not object when the federal government went after Swartz, they actually helped the government and acted to thwart Swartz,’ defense team.
Contrary to what MITs bogus “investigation” (aka, whitewash) by MIT Computer science (sic and sick) professor Hal Abelson concluded, MIT was NOT neutral in the whole sorry saga.
See the Electronic Frontier Foundation critique.
MITs treatment of Aaron Swartz and their acceptance of millions from sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein show their true colors .
EFF: MIT was not neutral on Aaron Swartz; actively assisted in his prosecution.
What will be the next edu-scam? Anyone want to venture a guess?
Also, curious….any thoughts as to Schoology? Was it on the list and I missed it or…..
Schoology and Google Classroom are so foul. They’re like Competency Based Education programs with grades (and badges) and tons of other Personally Identifiable Information involved. I think Schoology took every horrible thing from this jaw dropping list of tech disasters and included it in its website.
“Again and again, we encounter EdTech start-ups and innovations that are greeted with wild acclaim and hype, but whose collapse is ignored as the parade moves on to the next overpromised miracle technology.”
AND, again and again, we hear the same blame game. When asked why their (faux) magic-bullet innovations did not work, every EdTech failure is blamed on teachers and teachers’ unions. Ergo, EdTech (faux) gurus say we must strip power from teachers and get rid of teachers’ unions.
Don’t you know?
Members of the public are always at fault when they have problems using high tech stuff: too dumb, too incompetent, etc.
I used to work with engineers in high tech and if the public only knew the contemptuous way that the techies talk about their customers, the public might be a little less inclined to worship the techies
I bet the Boeing 737 Max engineers blame the pilots for the crashes.
The flaw of the Boeing 737 MAX was not the engineers but the corporate leaders who wanted to make money fast.
Boeing has some real trash working for them, including their CEO.
Former CEO
He just resigned.
Not sure why it took so long.
Everyone knew he was a liar.
The engineers are also to blame.
They simply go along to get along.
It is only after something bad happens that they come crawling out of the woodwork saying “we warned the management” to absolve themselves of responsibility.
I’m sure there were lots of Boeing engineers who saw problems and just looked the other way.
And I am also sure the problems with the MCAS system are just the tip of the iceberg.
If I were in charge of the FAA, I would require top to bottom testing of the 737 Max of every system and subsystem in the plane.
Boeing engineers belong to a union.
If they had really been serious, they could have filed a formal safety complaint as a group.
But they didn’t and the claim that they “feared for their job” rings just a little hollow after the deaths of 300 people because of THEIR (the engineers’ failure.)
Hey, slightly off topic, but testing and charters made this a very long decade, and so teacher strikes (and family) made 2019 a best year ever for me. Goliath is falling. I am deeply gratified to everyone here. Thank you. Happy New Year.
LCT,
Yes, yes, yes. Goliath is a big, heavily armed idiot.
Oh my Lord, Diane. That puts it perfectly. I am going to remember that line.
Ditto LCT! Following the blog discussions a little more closely and participating the last 2 days was cathartic for me. Happy New Year!!
Welcome to the best club in the nation!
We toss out disrupted, trolls, liars, etc.
This is brilliant. As a school librarian for the last seventeen years, I was always “shamed” by the latest new tech trick I was late to adapt. I enjoyed this survey of the graveyard of tech tricks and glad I didn’t fall for them!
Sara
On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 at 13:35, Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “I just opened my email and discovered this brilliant > post by Audrey Watters, whose voice on EdTech is indispensable. Watters > lists the 100 biggest EdTech debacles of the past decade, and seeing them > all in one place is astonishing. What strikes me i” >
Not everything new is better. Books have stood the test of time!
As has Socrates and his methods of direct engagement with one’s students.
There’s a reason so many teachers are “old school”. It’s effective!
The Tech View
Shiny and new
Glittering too
Tech gives a view
That seldom is true
ITelligent Design
If human brain
Were meant for tech
Our brain would have a port
A kind of drain
Or “data neck”
The up- and down-load sort
Excellent article! I wish I could send this to the tech-obsessed superintendent of the district in which I teach.
Send it!
I would like to send it to my admin’s too..(along with all the research from DEY)……. but falls on deaf ears. Data driven, hour of code, academic rigor, grit…..etc. are entrenched.
For me…sending this would be like sending an article about a politician which gives a history showing he has been corrupt to his core for decades – to someone who supports that politician. They think it is spin and exaggerated for political purposes. And then you are seen as a difficult person. Or in the case of a school entrenched in all of the edTech stuff…… you could be seen a teacher resistant to change.
Send it by regular mail anonymously.
Not a bad idea. But the use of the f-word in the opening paragraph, in my conservative area, will mean it doesn’t get read. I’m not saying the word shouldn’t be there; it totally is appropriate in the context here. It’s just that it will be used as an excuse not to read it.
I’m not sure why otherwise smart people see the need to use the f word at all.
Comedians like John Oliver do it (although they don’t need to), but serious people certainly have no need.
I guess it’s supposed to make them seem cool, but it just alienates them from a significant part of their audience.
Not smart at all. Stupid, actually.
SDP,
I agree about the overuse of the F word. Some of my favorite comedy-films are loaded with the word, but it is not necessary in any way.
Maybe they are straining to be PG and not G; or R instead of PG.
Maybe just send the meat of the article which starts with
The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade”
What a great compilation. An amazing catalog of tech debacles and sadly most of us have experienced many in our school districts. Thanks to Audrey for shedding light.
Audrey Watters says “I don’t think it’s a stretch to call the rollout of the Common Core one of the major education disasters of the decade. I include the CCSS here because of the vast influence it had on schools prompting schools to buy new “Common Core-aligned” technology products — hardware and software and digital curriculum and assessments”
There is a MAJOr problem with characterizing it as a “rollout problem” because this plays right into the hands of people like Bill Gates, David Coleman and Jason Zimba, who blame all the problems associated with Common Core on the failure by teachers and school officials to implement it “correctly”.
The problem is much more serious and has nothing to do with “rollout”, except if one means by rollout the profoundly undemocratic way that Common Core was imposed from above on (shoved down the throat of) the nation by Gates, Duncan and Governors.
Furthermore, the ” vast influence it had on schools prompting schools to buy new “Common Core-aligned” technology products — hardware and software and digital curriculum and assessments” was not a side effect of Common Core but it’s core purpose.
Bill Gates makes that crystal clear in a 2009 speech
The USSR, like CCCS, had a major implementation problem.
Yes, in both cases the “rollout” was more like a “rollover” (with a tank)
Although i do use technology in the classroom, even attempt to make apps for teachers to use and write about it on my site, it worries me that it is regarded as anything more than just another tool in a teachers toolkit. It feels, and has done for a while that there is a constant search for a magic key, a one size fits all answer to education with scant regard to the realities of teaching millions of individual people with different priorities, cultures, wants and needs, abilities and interests.
Though the search for this one size fits all answer is worrying, as it distracts from the reality on the ground and the value of a really good teacher, the chances of success are not. Those of use happy few who have spent longer that a day or two in the classroom know that try as they might there is no replacement for a really good teacher.
Breathtaking.