The arrival of COVID-19 has made children and educators across the nation dependent on distance learning for since March. Many parents recognize the defects of distance learning and eagerly await the opportunity to send their child back to real school when it is safe. They understand that an iPad or computer can’t take the place of a real teacher.
Meanwhile the for-profit edtrch industry sees the pandemic as a golden opportunity to cash in on a crisis.
For sound guidance at this perilous time, please read the statement released by the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood:
See the statement here.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you, Diane.
This statement needs to repeated over and over again:
“Fortunately, there is an alternative to EdTech: trusting educators to work together and employ their intelligence and creativity to design and deliver curricula that keep all students engaged while deepening their learning, even in a pandemic. Our children and our nation deserve nothing less than safe schools and low-tech, child-centered, educator-driven learning.”
I love this. The tech is unavoidable right now, but we can’t just let kids loose to spend whole days looking at screens. And empowering the teachers would be a long-overdue, radical move in the right direction.
If everyone really understood, believed and acted on the information in the statement we would have a healthier society. Unfortunately I think there are too many parents who would read this and take it with a grain of salt. It’s so easy to put children in front of tech and parents are busy. This is an uphill battle.
and saddest reality: too many times parents are busy being caught up in their own tech devices
“Indeed, research has found that the introduction of internet access into low-income households actually results in lower academic achievement. Programs to give low-income families access during the pandemic must be accompanied by tech-intentional and low-tech pedagogies.”
Yes, yes, yes! Giving people devices and WiFi does not produce equality. Giving people low-tech teachers with small class sizes does, even during the pandemic.
Ed tech is no panacea for education. Research conducted by think tanks and foundations affiliated with the ed tech industry is highly suspect.
“Simply adding ed tech to a learning environment doesn’t guarantee better learning. In fact, using ed tech to replace teachers or to scale ineffective practice guarantees poorer learning outcomes. When it comes to teaching and learning, it’s not what you use, but how you use it that counts.”
Teachers should be the determiners of how and when to use ed tech. Professionals have a vision of the path of instruction. Ed tech should not be mandated as this often results in worse instructional outcomes. In person instruction remains the most effective way to teach young and poor students that benefit from the personal relationship they have with teachers. A recent poll of parents in my home district revealed that only 6% of parents intend to enroll their children in online instruction this year. Most parents have already seen the limitations of cyber instruction during the pandemic, and they do not want to subject students to more of it.
I appreciate this statement and will post a link to it on two forums where teachers in the visual arts are trying to deal with edtech demands.
Excellent statement. but may only be preaching to the choir. How will this get exposure on our corporate-owned media? Our current society is run (and has been ruined) by advertising.
Yes. Completely agree. Marketing, advertising, spin…. we would need Jeff Bezos type $$ to counteract it.
OK. The word ‘tech’ drives me nuts.
Way back, I went to an ‘institute of technology’, however they also taught science. It was VERY clear that ‘technology’ meant ‘the application of the products (discoveries) of science to a practical purpose’. In other words, ‘science’ produced a model that ‘technology’ used to create something ‘useful’.
Also, in those days, I experienced computers (they ran on radio tubes then and took up entire floors of a building. they were, for sure, ‘tech’, but only one manifestation). I learned to program and understood that in order for a computer (an assemblage of on-off switches) to work, it (the assemblage) needed to by set up (compiled) in a particular way to understand future input. The ‘operating systems’ of today are nothing other than specific ‘compilers’, an initial setting of switches.
It was pretty clear in those days that engineering was ‘tech’. Any engineering (chemical, civil, mechanical, electrical, whatever) relied upon the products (models) produced by scientific investigation. Engineering and ‘applied science’ were the exact same thing, as was technology. The words, in those days, had fairly specific meanings.
So, Educators have used ‘tech’ to some extent, for a very long time. The Mayan and Egyptian pyramids were ‘technology’. If Socrates taught in a natural woodland, he didn’t use ‘tech’, but if he taught in a building he used ‘tech’. In my extreme youth, the blackboard was tech, the chalk stick was tech, the desks were tech, and the outhouse was tech.
Imagine my surprise 25 years later that an English teacher at the school where I was teaching was suddenly the ‘Queen of Tech’! She had no idea about the meaning of ‘technology’, nor had she had any experience in computer design or programming. She simply thought computers (in 1990) were ‘cool’ and needed to be promoted (as well as herself, of course). It was then I learned that the word ‘technology’ had been usurped, and almost stood on it’s head.
Language is mutable, of course, however rapid change hinders communication. Historically, cultures tried to suppress linguistic mutation in order to preserve clarity. However, suddenly, ‘technology’ meant computers. Exclusively. Why?
In the perception of Americans at the time, ‘technology’ was good. So, to adopt the term to your product (personal computer, or more importantly the software that ran it) meant that the product (computer, software) was ‘good’. If you could convince people that computers were ‘technology’ and nothing else counted as such, then you consolidated ‘good’. And a ton of microcomputers and game machines were sold.
“Children between 8 and 11 who spend more than two hours per day on screens perform worse on memory, language and thinking tests than those who spend less time.” This is a scare headline quoted out of context, and exaggerated. See the linked study abstract. They’re talking about recreational screen time, and they’re not focused on it, it’s studied in conjunction with adequate sleep and exercise. (Plus, is the testing good? Has anyone ever seen tests that accurately measure “global cognition”?)
That said, any parent of younger children [5-11y.o.] might conclude based on observation that more than 2 hrs screen time at a clip is excessive– that’s the point at which you chase them outside to get some exercise. Another two-hour session might be OK later in the day.
Yet my town’s hybrid/ remote schedule limits screen time to two hours only for kindergartners. Age 6& up are scheduled for passive screen-watching FOUR hrs a day– PLUS an afternoon session of interactive. The latter should be better, but I’m skeptical about the “small-group and teacher consultation” description. How does that work when 25-30 kids are logged on?
This once again reflects failure of imagination in planning remote ed. It’s all about squeezing in all the subjects, and disregards everything known about passive learning & excess screen time. For 2 days/wk remote, I’d like to see 1 day per subject– 2 total. Two hours max on presentation, followed by a two-hour project, ideally hands-on & including some outdoor exploration. Leave the computer on livestream if you want, so kids can check in on what the at-school classmates are doing. Use the interactive pm session to discuss project findings. If your town (like mine) also has an all-remote day, there’s another 2hrs for each of the 2 subjects — use your imagination. Reinforce what was done/ learned that week, follow up with writing, reading, whatever. Or make it all zoom, divided into 4 groups, each of which logs on only for their 1/2hr of discussion.
The founder/co-founder of Bill Gates-funded Bellwether, Pahara, TFA and New Schools Venture Fund said the goal of charter organizations was “…brands on a large scale.”
I hope nobody comes to Gates’ defense in the conspiracy theory that’s launched against him. The latest- an Instagram photo of Gates cracking up like a cartoon figure is spreading.
How much tax money did Americans lose to his tax avoided, oligarchical schemes?
We know his spending in education caused immense harm. How about his manipulations in the public health sector?
Title for a book- The Oligarch and his Impatient Opportunists.