Archives for category: Technology, Computers
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The Lessons of L.A.’s iPad Fiasco: Is Anyone Listening? Does Anyone Care?

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2013 //
7

So Los Angeles spent $1 billion on iPads, promising grand outcomes, closing the digital divide between rich and poor, the “civil rights issue of our time,” yada, yada, yada.

But as this blogger points out, this move was made without the most elementary planning or forethought.

Should anyone have been consulted before spending 25-year school construction bond money on iPads? Will voters ever again approve such a bond knowing that it may be diverted to an administrator’s pet project?

She asks questions that apparently never occurred to the administrators who bought the iPads:

“If the ipads stay in the classroom, how is their distribution to be managed in any way efficiently?

If in the classroom, is the physical integrity of the building sufficient to ensure everyone’s and everything’s safety?

If staying in the classroom, does that forfeit the device’s biggest potential, as substitutes for heavy, expensive, resource-intensive textbooks?

If not to stay in the classroom, how will internet access be managed among “not-wired”, very poor or chaotic homes?

How are electronics to be harnessed for education alone and not hijacked by its social, interactive component?

If not in the classroom, how to reconcile bond construction monies targeted to long-term infrastructure support, with transient instruction delivery tied to non-durable goods?

If not in the classroom, how to manage the high turnover (purportedly up to one-third) among students of some high-poverty communities? What is the implication for device-specific instruction? For physical disappearance of the devices?

When was the imperative of Common Core testing agreed upon, as it underlies the drive behind implementing the
ipad program precipitously?

When were teachers presented an honest cost:benefit analysis toward soliciting professional input regarding utility and efficacy in educating their students???

And:

“When were parents presented an honest cost:benefit analysis toward soliciting parental input regarding utility and efficacy in educating their child???

“The bottom line is: the people such massive programs with gargantuan implications affect, need to be asked first. A program of such eclipsing size and existential implications needs at the least to be tested, to be piloted and then: to be evaluated before approving or denying subsequent phases.”

“It is an incredibly uncomfortable position to feel patronized and exploited by in-house imperialists. How do these detached, possibly ulteriorly-motivated administrators know what is best in the classroom, without going into the classroom? Ask the denizens there what they need, and for some sense of the fallout.”

From California to New York, the same questions arise: why don’t the people making decisions about children and education listen to parents and educators?

In a democracy, consultation is necessary and wise. Great leaders know how to listen and are wiling to learn from their errors.

Categories Common Core, Education Industry, For-Profit, Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Cost of L.A. iPads Continues to Rise

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2013 //
20

School officials in Los Angeles are still trying to figure out the actual cost of the iPads for all students. The price goes higher unless the district buys 600,000 devices. The cost of keyboards was not favored in.

Another problem arose in hearings on discovery that the Pearson content loaded into the iPads is licensed for only three years. Will it disappear or will upgrades cost more?

District staff promises answers at next meeting.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Robert D. Shepherd on inBloom

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
41

Robert D. Shepherd, curriculum writer and author, left the following comment following Andrea Gabor’s post about the data collecting and data mining business called inBloom.

He writes:

“There were 55,235,000 K-12 public school students in the US in 2010. At $5.00 apiece for inBloom, that would amount to $276,175,000 a year. And if inBloom had a large existing database, it would become a monopoly provider. Switching from it would be next to impossible.

But that’s just the beginning. The whole point of gathering this real-time data on student responses is to link it to online adaptive curricula, with inBloom 2.0 as the gateway, the portal, for delivery of that curricula–

serving up the mind-blowingly inane online worksheet on the schwa sound to little Yolanda and the Powerpoint-like online worksheet on the foil method for factoring to little Kwame. The fans of this online adaptive curricula are the sort of people who think that all learning can be reduced to bullet points on a screen.

At any rate, when the inBloom database becomes the portal for curricula, that’s when the big bucks start rolling in, from inBloom’s “partners,” like Murdoch’ and Klein’s Amplify, for example. And inBloom has made it VERY clear from the start that that’s their plan. That’s the “promise” of having such a database.

Quite a promise.

In short, inBloom is a strategic powerplay for the education market.

I dearly hope that people will have the sense to stop this Orwellian operation before it sinks its data-gathering tentacles into our nation’s children.

Think of it, a nationwide portal for delivery of curricula, a gateway with inBloom as toll-taker.

As Arne Duncan’s office put it, “The new standards are about creating a national market for products that can be brought to scale.”

Bill Gates earned his billions by selling a small amount of stuff to practically EVERYONE.

It appears that inBloom has a very similar long-term business model.

It gets even worse. Read the Department of Education’s Report on “Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century.” This report envisions hooking kids up to real-time monitors of their affective states and feeding THOSE into the database as well so that grit, tenacity, and perseverance can be measured continually.

This kind of thing goes WAY BEYOND Orwell’s Telescreens in 1984. The whole concept is sickening.

And Arne Duncan’s Department of Education is serving as the facilitator for the creation of this Orwellian Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth (Minitrue).

You have to give it to these guys for cooking up such a diabolical strategic plan. And almost no one seems, yet, to be hip to what this national data-gathering is really about over the long term. Such plans could be carried out only if people weren’t really paying attention. So far, that’s worked well for the, ahem, “reformers.” We have new NATIONAL “standards” even though most U.S. citizens have never heard of them and haven’t a clue what they are, what’s in them, who paid for them, who created them, what consequences they will have for curricula and pedagogy, and so on. All that new standards and testing stuff was done with NO national debate and with no vetting.

I’m sure that the inBloom folks were hoping for the same here. And the truly frightening thing is that their hopes might well be fulfilled.

Totalitarianism can come about through violent revolution. It can also come about because no one is paying attention.”

Categories Data and Data Mining, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Technology, Computers

What Happens When “Disruption” Fails?

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2013 //
19

It seems like only yesterday the New York Times magazine published a lengthy article about the powerful and transformative tablets that Joel Klein’s company Amplify had sold to the Guilford County, North Carolina, schools. The writer, Carlo Rotella, was appropriately cautious in assessing what it meant when students had most of their lessons on a tablet, but nonetheless there was a tone (encouraged by Joel Klein)
of “this is the future, get used to it.”

Well, maybe it is the future, but not yet. On Friday, the Amplify tablets were recalled because of multiple technical glitches. The schools are suspending their use until problems can be ironed out.

According to a local business blog,

Guilford County Schools is suspending the use of 15,000 tablet computers that are part of its signature learning technology initiative because of cracking screens and potential safety problems. Those tablets were supplied by a company called Amplify, which is a collaboration betweenNews Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) and AT&T(NYSE: T).

The district said it turns out those tablets were not manufactured with the proper damage-resistant screens, and about 10 percent of the district’s devices have had to be returned to the company because of broken displays. Another 2,000 tablet cases supplied by Amplify have also had reported defects.

Also, at least one student turned in a charger that had overheated, melting its plastic casing. That’s a potential safety problem, and it prompted district officials to go ahead and suspend the entire program until Amplify and its suppliers can fix the problems.

The Amplify tablet was heavily marketed as the Next Big Thing, with profits unlimited, but it was not adequately tested. The success of the marketing campaign seemed to assure the success of the product.

This brings to mind two other heavily marketed, expensive products that were not properly tested or implemented.

Los Angeles continues to struggle with its $1 billion iPad problem. The kids cracked the security code in no time, using the expensive devices as toys. Some were withdrawn, some were lost. Meanwhile, the district has crumbling buildings (that should have been repaired with the money from the 25-year construction bond that was used to pay for the iPads), and classes are overcrowded.

And then there are the Common Core standards. The Gates Foundation assumed that if it gave a few millions to every significant organization inside the Beltway, the whole country would quietly acquiesce and accept the product that Gates paid for. That venture is experiencing meltdowns in state after state because it was hurried into production and deployed without trial runs and without consultations with the end users.

At some point, all this “creative disruption” will run into a wall. Perhaps it already has. Parents, students, and educators can take just so much at one time. Then “reform fatigue” sets in.

Categories Common Core, Technology, Computers

HECHINGER Report: Inside Story on L.A. iPad Fiasco

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2013 //
39

Here is a very interesting story in the HECHINGER Report about what went wrong in Los Angeles, after the district decided to send $1 billion on iPads.

Poor planning, poor implementation, a rush to get them in the hands of students without thinking about how to make it work or what might go wrong.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

L.A. Times Columnist Asks Whether iPads Are Worth $1 Billion

By dianeravitch
October 1, 2013 //
36

Columnist Steve Lopez says that the L.A. officials rushed into the iPad deal without thinking through the problems.

Students broke the security codes to use them for fun.

Many went missing.

Biggest uncertainty: is the content any good?

Who will be held accountable, he asks.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Alice Mercer Reviews “Reign of Error” and EdTech

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2013 //
8

Alice Mercer’s review
of “Reign of Error” addresses the question raised by some
EdTech reviewers about where I stand on the use of technology in
the classroom. She quotes from the book to demonstrate that I
strongly believe in the value of technology as a tool to transform
and enliven teaching.

Why read a few sentences in a dull textbook
about John F. Kennedy’s electrifying Inaugural Address when you can
watch it in the same amount of time, get a visceral sense of the
man, hear his voice, watch the crowd react, and get a vivid
real-time overview of the world he was describing?

Why read about an event when technology can take you to the scene?

Mercer also understands and explains the lure of technology to those who see
the schools as an emerging market, a chance to tap into scarce
public dollars. She knows that entrepreneurs hawking
“personalization” and “individualization” are often
thinking about adaptive testing and test prep, not creative ways to
engage young minds in exploring new ways of learning. And when a
financially strapped district spends $1 billion on tablets and
iPads instead of repairing crumbling buildings, we must ask about
priorities.

Categories On-Line Education, Technology, Computers

$1Billion for iPads in Los Angeles: A Colossal Joke

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2013 //
25

Howard Blume reports that students in many districts quickly cracked the security code on their shiny new iPads. Now they are using them for Facebook, music, gaming, whatever.

Thanks, citizens of Los Angeles!

Too bad the district can’t afford to repair its buildings or reduce class size or hire arts teachers.

Have fun, kids. Just make sure you don’t lose your new toy.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

Students in Los Angeles, Indiana Outwit iPads

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2013 //
43

Students in Los Angeles and Indiana wasted no time in cracking the security codes on their iPads and going to sites that were supposedly off-limits, like games, Facebook, and other social media.

Who says our students are not smart?

Categories Education Reform, Technology, Computers

Los Angeles: Deasy’s Top Deputy Quits

By dianeravitch
September 15, 2013 //
16

Jaime Aquino, the deputy superintendent for instruction in LAUSD, unexpectedly quit his $250,000 a year post, although he plans to stay until the end of the year.

The story is that he was disheartened by the change in the board, in which progressive members took control away from the corporate reform bloc controlled by Eli Broad.

Board members expressed dismay about his departure and praised him fulsomely.

Aquino was in charge of Common Core implementation, and rumors are swirling that he may be blamed for the controversial decision to invest $1 billion in iPads, using money that was approved by voters for 25-year school construction bonds.

Aquino was a graduate of the unaccredited Broad Superintendents Academy. He was hired by John Deasy less than two weeks after Deasy took over.

Clearly Aquino was disappointed when the corporate reform bloc lost control and was reduced to only 2 votes on the board.

He personally donated $1,000 to the political campaign of Monica Garcia, the school board president, who was supported by the Eli Broad/Villaraigosa funders.

A teacher sent me the following comment: ” I am a K-5 arts teacher with LAUSD.   Jaime came to speak to the arts teachers when he was newly hired and bluntly stated that he had shut down arts schools in the past for teaching “frivolous arts activities”.  I hope our next Dean of Instruction makes the arts a priority in our district.”

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers
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