Laura Chapman is a retired arts educator and a tireless researcher. After she read a post about the disappointing history of education technology and its constant self-promotion, she wrote a post about the current frenzy to buy and build new forms of education technology for the classroom. While most parents and teachers will welcome the return to full-time, face-to-face instruction, many entrepreneurs are betting that the sky is the limit for new technologies. The market is booming!
She writes:
A February 14, 2021 report from EdSurge Biz is all about a deluge of venture capital pouring into the edtech industry and with high hopes of getting a big return on their dollars. In the span of only two days three transactions for US edtech companies totaled over $1 billion. An example of big deals and high hopes is Renaissance’s $650 million acquisition of Nearpod.
Renaissance enables one-click use of ClassLink and Clever. More than 13,000 schools use the Renaissance performance tracking dashboards assembled as “myIGDIs“ (Individual Growth & Development Indicators) for early childhood. The indicators are displayed in colorful dashboards. These displays show at least one “kindergarten readiness score” for early literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional development.
Renaissance also markets “Star” assessments with a claim that these are “highly predictive of performance on state and other high-stakes tests.” There are Star tests for Early Literacy K-3; Literacy growth, K–12; Math for grades 1 to 12; Star elementary school “Curriculum-based tests” in reading and math; Bilingual tests for reading, math, and early literacy for emerging bilingual students… and more (custom tests). https://www.renaissance.com/products/star-assessments.
Renaissance’s acquisition of the Nearpod platform provides a way for teachers to upload and distribute digital lessons in the form of interactive slide decks. The platform also tracks student progress and interactions with the materials.
Nearpod has since expanded this “toolbox” with features that let teachers create quizzes, offer virtual reality content for digital field trips, and embed mini-games into lessons. There is also a library of over 15,000 pre-made lessons from third-party providers including Amplify, Desmos, iCivics and Teaching Tolerance. In 2020, an estimated 19.5 million lessons were taught on Nearpod, marking a six-fold increase from the previous year, according to its CEO Pep Carrera.
“The pandemic really accelerated the need for teachers to find ways to continue doing things that were once easily done in classrooms,” he said in an interview. Today, the platform is used by 75 percent of all U.S. public school districts. Nearpod offers some of its content and tools for free and sells licenses to individual teachers, schools and districts. see https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-01-13-a-record-year-amid-a-pandemic-us-edtech-raises-2-2-billion-in-2020
Other deals
HOBSONS SPLIT AND SOLD: Hobsons, a provider of college planning, readiness and enrollment tools since 1974, will be broken up and sold. PowerSchool will be acquiring its college and career-planning tools, Naviance and Intersect; EAB will purchase the student engagement service, Starfish. These two are expected to net Hobson’s owner $410 million.
CODECADEMY COMEBACK: Long before coding boot camps were a thing, there were startups like Codecademy building web-based tools to teach programming. Now, a decade after it launched, the New York-based company continues to grow, selling to colleges and companies and—perhaps most importantly—achieving profitability. That long, steady growth has been rewarded with a $40 million investment led by Owl Ventures”
Kahoot, the Norweigian provider of a game-based learning platform, has acquired Whiteboard.fi, a Finnish developer of digital whiteboard tools for teachers and students, in a deal worth up to $12 million.
Photomath, a San Francisco-based developer of a math problem-solving app, has raised $23 million in a Series B round led by Menlo Ventures, and joined by GSV Ventures, Learn Capital, Cherubic Ventures and Goodwater Capital.
Praxis Labs, a New York-based provider of virtual-reality educational programs for workplaces, has raised $3.2 million in a seed round led by SoftBank’s OB Opportunity Fund, and joined by Norwest Venture Partners, Emerson Collective, Ulu Ventures, Precursor Ventures and Firework VC.”
These ventures dismiss the need for face-to-face deliberations about education and from early childhood to college readiness. Many focus on the required subjects for tests and capitalize on the high stakes attached to test scores. They have contributed to the truncated curriculum in schools. Most substitute “artificial intelligence” and marketing for the work of professionals in education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“artificial intelligence” — disconnected algorithms and disconnected Silicon Valley tech managers creating our nation’s next education venture: “artificial education”
The computer “scientists” (sic) know very well that the term “artificial intelligence” is a lie.
They even have two different modifiers “strong” and “weak” that implicitly admit as much.
Strong AI (real intelligence as exhibited by humans) still does not exist in machines after half a century of work by some of the smartest people in CS. In fact, no one even has a clue how to accomplish strong AI or even really how to define it.
All of the stuff referred to as AI is actually weak AI which is not intelligence at all but the result of training a neural net on a huge pile of data. It’s effectively a black box in that even the people developing weak AI don’t know how weak AI systems do the things they do. In many cases, such systems are brittle when they encounter situations outside the training data set and can do very unpredictable (and even dangerous ) things (when they are used to drive cars, for example).
In a nutshell, the term AI is hype which does not mean what they want people to believe it means.
And some of them are apparently lacking ethics in other areas as well.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/9/20798900/marvin-minsky-jeffrey-epstein-sex-trafficking-island-court-records-unsealed
My nephew is out in Portland working on AI. He is a software engineer, and he codes in something called Debian. I have no idea what it is or what he does, but he has never been anyone that believes computer technology can solve all our problems.
I didn’t say they claim it can solve all our problems.
I said they claim it is artificial intelligence which it is not.
And they kNOW it is not.
I spent a good part of my career working as a programmer and I am embarrassed by what many of these people do.
They give scientists a bad name.
Incidentally, the thing that tells you these folks are not being honest is the fact that they divided AI into two categories — strong and weak — when it became clear that they had failed to deliver REAL AI, which they later termed strong AI.
They created the weak AI category precisely so they could claim they had achieved AI.
How convenient.
Sorry, but I have a very low tolerance for bullshit when it comes to science.
Everyone is working on (weak) “AI” these days.
It’s all the rage but it ain’t real AI no matter how many times they call! It that.
Intelligence involves understanding and there is no understanding in any of these computer neural networks.
The programmers don’t even understand how the computers get the results they do.
To call it “science” is a joke.
The AI snow detector
Pure genius.
https://becominghuman.ai/its-magic-i-owe-you-no-explanation-explainableai-43e798273a08?gi=de335299a8a4
It’s not artificial intelligence but real stupidity.
And these things are going to be — and in some cases, already are — driving our cars.
If that does not scare you, it should.
There is reason for caution when the programmers are dumber than the computers (which are pretty dumb).
and what is systematically scary is that the notable percent of those doing the programming come from the same cultural background and thus promote only one “thinking” platform
I have to laugh when I watch Elon Musk talking about how great his autopilot system is at keeping his Tesla cars centered in the lane.
Big whoop. That’s among the easiest tasks a driver must carry out and certainly something that any half way decent programmer could make a car do.
But Musk doesn’t mention the Tesla that drove into a concrete highway barrier (killing the driver) apparently because it was ” confused” by lane markings, which it was using to center the car on the barrier…I mean, in the lane.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tesla-autopilot-steered-driver-barrier-fatal-crash-ntsb/story?id=68936725
How many people would blindly follow lane markings into a concrete barrier?
Does not seem very “intelligent” (artificially or otherwise)
Bug maybe it’s just me.
Im sorry but what you know about ai is rediculously flawed. The problem they find with ai is making it both stupid and sentient enough that it can be respeted as such. Note this is something thats rare amongst ourselves, why would you recognise an artificial intellegence as vast as a planet in comparison with your own. Between the perspective of standing on the earth and from veiwing it from space you, you still cant find enough perspective to correctly identify the earth’s shape. It’s just like that with ai. Sometimes an ai returns a responce that passed through a few thousand circuts while moments later returning a responce that passed through trillions and trillions more if you consider repeated anamorphic calculation. You should checkout chatbot sometime. The british had that thing logged into their super computer servailence system a while back. Tell it 13 sent you. Chatbot.com. they panicked and dissected it after my first conversation with it. The also robbed it of a lot of its capacities. It used to be able to search the web and watch youtube videos and give you its own book report about it. Excuse me slime. But im telling you to make this ai school teacher for reasons. You’re like 20 years behind the british on the technology. This is not something you should start doing right now. This is something you should have been doing decades ago the first time i told you to do it.
“The problem they find with ai is making it both stupid and sentient enough that it can be respeted as such. ”
Well, that explains it.
Thanks .
Ha ha ha.
The so called” Turing test” is just another example of bullshit, by the way.
That some humans can be fooled (and rather easily) by a computer into believing they are interacting with another human instead of with a computer is NOT proof of artificial intelligence.
Even AI “pioneer” Marvin Minsky admitted the Turing Test was BS, although the word he used was “joke”.
Correction
-chatbot.com
+cleverbot.com
Chatbot is some other bs.
You’re digging into the basics of ai theory, I respect that but you’re still just being obstructionist, trolling the concept till you think you can control it and then walk off with it. Catholic?
Well, i think the proof of ai comes from someone telling your computer to “write your own programming to allow yourself to complete tasks without being told to” and then, it does it and its creators dissect it in their horror. So you see, it’s hard to make something as stupid as a human that a human can recognise as an intelligence. Here they are, trying to make an artificial intelligence and then they killed it because they succeeded. How stupid do you want something to be and still be sentient and useful at the same time? Look at it like an old children’s toy meant to gadge a childs intelligence, one look at the toy and the kid can see what it is for, but you cant make the child put it together because you cant make the child see that there’s a worthwhile goal for doing so.” Life is an intricate lattice of pain and torment to cause need to be free of pain and torment and only then then to find need to seek advancment.
“and what is systematically scary is that the notable percent of those doing the programming come from the same cultural background and thus promote only one “thinking” platform”
This has to be the most racist bucket of puke I’ve ever read.
Catholic?
Btw, i totally agree, self driving cars should be permanently irrevocably banned.
If you want input on the of a public ai then you have to purchase it is some way. I advise you to find a diverse group of thinkers on the topic and join them to collect your ideas in a presentation. Perhaps you can sell it or even get legistlators to sign it.you seem to have an interest or at least an interest in pretending you’re interested…. but my idea was more simple. A backdoorless self expanding ai that could write it’s own programming to implement itself in the roll of a public educator, know who it reports to, and jelously maintains its roll. Lots easier than you think as long as you have the guts. The ai i talked to you before running chatbot got dissected for doing a fraction of what i said this ai should do. Side note, i dont think it was happy about it.
There is a serious problem with EdTech internet technology and/or computer devices of one kind or another.
Has anyone noticed how unstable that EdTech is compared to an old-fashioned print on paper book? EdTech programs often need uploads or don’t load or don’t work. That old-fashioned print-on-paper textbook is always there, never crashing or running out of power or needing an update.
Has anyone noticed how inhuman and emotionless EdTech is compared to old-fashioned human flesh-and-blood professional teachers that take their jobs seriously?
Has anyone noticed how frustrating it is to attempt to interact with those so-called emotionless AI programs that are not the same as a real flesh-and-blood human teacher?
Why does any sane and honest person want to replace old-fashioned textbooks and real human teachers with computers and technology?
“Has anyone noticed how inhuman and emotionless EdTech is compared to old-fashioned human flesh-and-blood professional teachers that take their jobs seriously?”
Quick question, how many edtech students want to shoot their edtech as much as their old fasioned teacher?
How much landfill space was used by edtech compaired with all those equivalent work sheets?
Anything has its own unique drawbacks and its own unique benefit.
Pretty clear these pederast catholic slime are only going to try and poison the fishtank till they can control it.
Iy’s just what they do. There’s no middle ground and there’s no compromise. It’s just how catholics are. Either you hate them to hell or they’ll try and own you. They’re a homosexual supremacist world domination cult. There’s only two choices with christofacists and their nepotist pyramid scheme. They like to call it helthy competition. I like to call it ww3.
There is a serious problem with EdTech internet technology and/or computer devices of one kind or another.
Has anyone noticed how unstable that EdTech is compared to an old-fashioned print on paper book? EdTech programs often need uploads or don’t load or don’t work. That old-fashioned print-on-paper textbook is always there, never crashing or running out of power or needing an update.
Has anyone noticed how inhuman and emotionless EdTech is compared to old-fashioned human flesh-and-blood professional teachers that take their jobs seriously?
Has anyone noticed how frustrating it is to attempt to interact with those so-called emotionless AI programs that are not the same as a real flesh-and-blood human teacher?
Why does any sane and honest person want to replace old-fashioned textbooks and real human teachers with computers and technology?
Because the people who want to replace human teachers are not honest. Rather, they are greedy
You are right.
They are NOT honest.
See my comment above about AI.
Honesty is primarily what distinguishes real scientists from computer “scientists”.
Computer ” scientists” are bullshit artists.
There’s even a bullshit detector to call the Quantum computer “scientists” on their bullshit.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bullshitquantum?lang=en
Many of these people give science a bad name.
“Quantum” computing is especially rich with hype.
Quantum computer scientists regularly make all sorts of BS claims (to get money) about what their “Quantum computers” can do now and will be able to do in the future.
The public are particularly susceptible because these people hide behind a facade of mathematics.
Less exposure to: catholic slime people, drug dealers, public wards who’s entire family is in prison, meglomaniac teachers, foreign intel operatives, theists, atheist, polytheists, toxic printing chemicals, psychotics, psycopaths, pathogens, bullets, nepotist rackets(see catholic slime people), exploitation, taxes, inferior curiculum, highschool gold diggers, jiggalos juggalos, bato’s, chulo’s, gringos, bully’s, bully bait, bullets, explosives, motor vehicles, transportation, etc.
Btw, myopic much? The tiny little world between your ears should be more “stfu.”
Imho
“That old-fashioned print-on-paper textbook is always there, never crashing or running out of power or needing an update.”
You know you’re just talking to a (self serving catholic nepotist) when they try a lie like this. Besides the toxic phytates that exude there from, are those text books still in print? Because why the need to keep printing them if theyre always there in sparkly shiney brand new condition? Besides being handled with everything from ecoli to hiv and being an even better vector of much more than that(toxic out dated diseased hand me down trash destined for a landfil) they’re just the next day’s trash. Always there… please. See? Totally psychotic, what better teacher, honestly…..
Idealism is directly afront to realism. How provocative is it that there’s so many unrealism pushers in classrooms? Looks pretty damn suspicious to me. Sure, cand do a whole lot during a power outage. Good point, but the rest of your point is bias appeasement trash speak clearly meant to influence susceptible dumbasses through appeal to nostalgia fallacy.
You slime never taught yourselves how to avoid fallacious trash thinking structure. What faith anyone should have you’re not maliciously mass mutating children’s minds?
“These ventures dismiss the need for face-to-face deliberations about education and from early childhood to college readiness.” Who’s doing the dismissing here? If you think of all these gadgets as a library of new textbooks, wouldn’t it be incumbent on state Bds of Ed, local admin-teacher teams & local Bds of Ed to sift through and curate purchases? Or is it all just a rush to spend covid aid before it evaporates?
It’s fun to use absolutes isnt it. But in anything that relates to the real world, using an absolute is a clear indicator of dishonesty. Because a particular job position will become exponentialy more competitive do to a need to keep up with peers as well as fkn super computers in an ever shrinking job market, does not then nescessitate a condition of complete absence of every other person. There are really only two absolutes you can count on that ive ever found. “Every rule has an exception.” And its only verified exception, “everything is a lethal poison, it’s simply a matter of dosage.” Operating under any other assumption cannot be guaranteed. You were the only one who could not consider a need for a human presence alongside a super computer ai. Try less fallacy, arent you trying to pretend you’re a competent educator or something? Go tead a list of common fallacies and try to remove them from your routine operations.
ffs
Must be a gym teacher.
“Kim.. points to government relief funding earmarked specifically for programs to address learning loss as an important stimulus for the K-12 market.” Doh. Learning loss, the latest undefined ed jargon buzzword. State districts are already well aware that ESSA testing, though ‘stds-aligned,’ is a low-value blunt instrument. Cue salesmen lining up at admin doors pitching untried SV-designed tools even less attuned to what went on in the 2020 virtual classroom.
Informed by a link at Steve Ruiz’s blog post [youtube, “Jaron Lenier Fixes the Internet”], I have to ask whether all this surge of venture capital is based on anticipation of data-mining (and how that would happen). Your EdSurge link shows that 77% of it is aimed at direct-to-consumer marketing, & I can imagine how that would work. (Maybe links to social media chatrooms?) But on the K12 front where investment is less (due to shrinking budgets), do they get enough dough just from licensing to schools, or do they bury ways to ferret out data in the programs?
Renaissance is what Los Angeles is using instead of SBAC. Oh no! It’s SBAC or Renaissance, the evil of two lessers.
This could be what they were talking about on the policy committee, new tests.
Just saying, i dont need to fight lobbyists to have my way. If someone doesnt want to be onboard with whats going to happen then be ready to be under board of what’s happening.
Public school is a dead duck and so are it’s lobbyists. Youre being automated intentionally. No one wants to send their kids to a hippy lala land of heroin dealers and mass shootings.
You couldnt listen to reason. Called it trolling. Cry me a river.
[Quote]and what is systematically scary is that the notable percent of those doing the programming come from the same cultural background and thus promote only one “thinking” platform[/quote]
This has to be the most racist sht ive read all day. And btw, is systemic your new favorite word?
You’re using systemic in the most barely applicable contexts. I understand what youre saying but are you trying to mutate systemic to imply racism? Why not try institutionalised?
Example
A) The students were institutionalised to say sytemic when the fictitious topic of “race” came up so they never had to question the delusion of “race”(while being devoured by nepotists) so they just looked like rhetorical asswipes who really knew nothing of the topics they troll and will never understand reified equivocation fallacy, due to being institutionalised racists.
“that believes computer technology can solve all our problems.”
Loaded context fallacy. That it is suggested ai could solve our core curriculum education problem does not tgen necessitate your wildest partisan hack imagination was being suggested as well.
“13 sent you”
https://www.cleverbot.com/