Archives for category: Technology, Computers
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How Education Generates Profits for the Canny

By dianeravitch
May 5, 2013 //
12

A reader sends this comment:

While Business fails in Education, Education is certainly good for Business:

1) Quick Turnaround Teachers are funded by Walton, Dell, Gates….http://www.teachforamerica.org/support-us/donors

2) Corporate-funded CCSS http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/01/idUS157777+01-Feb-2012+BW20120201

3) Backed by corporate-advertising http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM_G4Y7SX3g

4) Opening new corporate marketing channels http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/56868-scholastic-new-technology-programs-aimed-at-the-common-core.html

3) in corporate-funded charter schools http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/mediacenter/top-five-grantees

4) advocated by corporate-funded “front men” http://www.ctunet.com/blog/memphis-district-to-lose-212-million-to-charter-schools-by-2016

5) so corporations can steal children’s data without parental consent http://educationnewyork.com/files/FERPA-ccsss.pdf

6) So they can create more “personalized products” http://www.classsizematters.org/new-york-state-inbloom-inc-fact-sheet/

7) And them move on to PERPETUATE “corporate-takeover-of-education” policies http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/state_edwatch/2012/01/john_white_appointed_chief_of_louisiana_schools.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB

All we need now is for TV shows and Movies to start incorporating the benefits of Common Core into their character’s personalities. Actually, the whole takeover of education is almost like a movie script itself!!

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology, Computers, Testing

Online Testing Broke Down in Several States

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2013 //
26

State testing was disrupted by major computer breakdowns in Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Minnesota.

All 46 states and D.C. are supposed to administer Common Core assessments online by 2014-15.

Maybe the corporations will solve the technological problems by then. Maybe states will come up with the money to pay for enough computers by then. Maybe students will figure out how to hack into the assessments by then.

All sorts of surprising and unpredictable things happen when big business and big government decide to take the work of humans out of human hands.

Categories Common Core, Technology, Computers, Testing

A Scary Future? The Teaching Machine and Big Data: LINK FIXED

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2013 //
22

This is a fascinating and rather frightening essay about the quest for a teaching machine.

Philip McRae, the author, looks at the historical search for a machine that would standardize teaching, making it cost-efficient and providing a common curriculum. Then he describes the present-day efforts to aggregate Big Data, discover patterns, and create a platform through which content might be delivered to 100 or 200 students in a class.

Here is the pivotal line:

“At its most innocent it is a renewed attempt at bringing back behaviourism and operant conditioning to make learning more efficient. At its most sinister; it establishes children as measurable commodities to be cataloged and capitalized upon by corporations. It is a movement that could be the last tsunami that systematically privatizes public education systems.”

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

What Happens When Skunks Bust Out of a Cage?

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2013 //
6

Nancy Flanagan, retired NBCT, has written a brilliant post about Governor Rick Snyder’s secret project called the Skunk Works. The goal of the project was to invent a brand-new cheap-cheap-cheap school called a “Value School.” Sort of like a discount store where you get a product that looks like the real thing, but it is a cheap copy.

Now that the Skunk Works is out in the open, people are stunned that the group consisted of entrepreneurs and software developers. The only teacher quit the group when he saw where it was going. Can you have education without teachers? It’s cheap but is it good education?

And the last line of her article is right on.

Categories Michigan, On-Line Education, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

Should Computers Grade Student Essays?

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2013 //
59

The New York Times recently reported on the introduction of software that is able to grade student essays and give instant feedback. It is currently being used in a number of universities; many others are likely to follow suit.

The student submits an essay and instantly receives a graded response from a computer. The student can then revise in hopes of improving the grade.

The software inevitably will be adopted for use in schools as well as colleges and universities.

Actually the Educational Testing Service already has an essay grader that can grade 16,000 essays in 20 seconds. Michael Winerip wrote about this in another article in the New York Times, back when he had a regular education column.

In both articles, the chief critics of machine grading of essays is Lew Perelman of MIT, who teaches writing. He says that it is easy to game the system, to prep for it; he also says that the system cannot identify good writing. It does not like short sentences or short paragraphs. Worse, as he says about the ETS system, it cannot tell truth from falsehood:

“He tells students not to waste time worrying about whether their facts are accurate, since pretty much any fact will do as long as it is incorporated into a well-structured sentence. “E-Rater doesn’t care if you say the War of 1812 started in 1945,” he said.”

Brave New World, indeed.

Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

British Tech Expert: Thumbs Down to Amplify

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2013 //
3

The Brits have reason to be suspicious of Rupert Murdoch’s entry into the education business. They still have fresh memories of the murdered Millie Dowling, whose cell phone was hacked by Murdoch reporters, as well as the larger hacking scandal, which reached into government and Scotland Yard.

This technology expert explains why he does not like Amplify.

Categories Klein, Joel, On-Line Education, Technology, Computers

What You Have Been Waiting For: The Cla$$room of the Future

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2013 //
11

EduShyster has captured in one small post the essence of the classroom of the future.

Here it is.

We will go where no nation in the world has ever dared to go:

Schools where happy teachers (all of them Excellent) have classes of 100 or more students, each one enjoying a customized, personalized education on their own tablet.

Think of the savings! Think of the market! Think of the profits!

Watch the video embedded in the link and you may notice the delightful homogeneity of the children in the cafeteria-style classroom, each learning at his or her own pace, all well-scrubbed, well-clothed and very happy to have their very own tablet.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, For-Profit, Technology, Computers, Testing

What If Tom Sawyer Battled the Bronte Sisters? UPDATE!!!! link fixed!

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2013 //
5

EduShyster is very excited about Joel Klein’s new product. It is not only software but a real tablet!

And yes, there is even some App where Tom Sawyer battles the Brontes.

The question is whether any of the students have ever read Tom Sawyer or anything written by the Brontes, or were they too busy reading informational text?

Categories For-Profit, Klein, Joel, Technology, Computers

Brian Ford Says: Repeat After Me

By dianeravitch
March 12, 2013 //
10

Brian Ford, teacher and author, writes:

Repeat after me:

THE GREAT MISTAKE AND OVERRIDING DANGER TO PUBLIC EDUCATION IS THAT
THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS WILL BE LINKD TO HIGH STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS, TEACHER EVALUATIONS AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS

I know it is not catchy, but say it twice more:

THE GREAT MISTAKE AND OVERRIDING DANGER TO PUBLIC EDUCATION IS THAT
THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS WILL BE LINKD TO HIGH STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS, TEACHER EVALUATIONS AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS

THE GREAT MISTAKE AND OVERRIDING DANGER TO PUBLIC EDUCATION IS THAT
THE COMMON CORE STANDARDS WILL BE LINKD TO HIGH STAKES STANDARDIZED TESTS, TEACHER EVALUATIONS AND SCHOOL CLOSINGS

Categories Common Core, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Technology, Computers

Proof: Bill Gates Has No Idea about Schools–or Children

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2013 //
76

They say that if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When you have made billions of dollars by selling technology, you start thinking that you hold the answer to all the world’s problems.

Bill Gates thinks he has the answer to education: standardized testing, data, and measurement, with lots of technology.

Does he know that every child is different?

Does he know that standardized tests are subject to random error, human error, measurement error, and other errors?

Do his own children take standardized tests?

Please, Bill, teach in an urban school for one week. Just one week. Let us know how it goes.

Take the standardized tests that you value so much. Not the fourth grade tests, but the twelfth grade tests. Publish your scores. Please.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Technology, Computers
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