I recently revisited the central prediction of the influential 2008 book, Disrupting Class – that the growth in computer-based delivery of education will accelerate swiftly until, by 2019, half of all high school classes will be taught over the Internet – in two blog posts (here and here). At the time the prediction was made, I was a skeptic (that it was possible, that it was inevitable, that is was even desirable) and have remained so.
For the prediction to approach a semblance of accuracy we should be seeing dramatic evidence by now that large percentages of U.S. high school students have the opportunity not just to take an online class for credit but a significant proportion of their course load online. New data analyses by NCES offer an updated assessment of the adoption of online learning by high schools:
- More than 4 in 10 U.S. public high schools (42.5 percent) did not offer any entirely online courses to high school students during the 2015-16 school year.
- Of those high schools that did offer entirely online courses, fewer than 14 percent offered students the ability to take about half or more of all courses entirely online:
- 3.6 percent of high schools that offered any courses entirely online offered ‘about half of all courses online;’
- 6.7 percent offered ‘a majority of all classes online;’ and,
- 3.6 percent offered ‘all classes online.’
This is a far cry from the evidence we should be seeing if the 2008 prediction was even approaching accuracy. Yet, from my vantage point in the education policy arena (in leadership roles, for instance, at the National Association of State Boards of Education and the State Educational Technology Directors Association), the book and prediction drove widespread advocacy for changes in policy and practice. Indeed, I am reminded by Audrey Watters 2016 admonition that “the best way to predict the future is to issue a press release:”
Here’s my “take home” point: if you repeat this fantasy, these predictions often enough, if you repeat it in front of powerful investors, university administrators, politicians, journalists, then the fantasy becomes factualized. (Not factual. Not true. But “truthy,” to borrow from Stephen Colbert’s notion of “truthiness.”) So you repeat the fantasy in order to direct and to control the future. Because this is key: the fantasy then becomes the basis for decision-making.
There is more to be said and written about this book and related topics. In the mean time, my “take home” point is that skepticism of claims about the future of technology in education deserve a greater voice. I believe it is inevitable that technological tools and services will become more integral to schools and schooling. How, for whom, and to what ends these tools will be employed, however, all deserve much deeper and critical investigations.
We need other better stories about the future of technology in education.
Otherwise, here’s what caught my eye this past week – news, tools, and reports about education, public policy, technology, and innovation – including a little bit about why. No endorsements; no sponsored content; no apologies for my eclectic tastes.
Strong opinions may be weakly held.
A Thinking Person’s Guide to EdTech News (2017 Week 34 Edition)
Showing the Algorithms Behind New York City Services | New York Times →
Algorithms can decide where kids go to school, how often garbage is picked up, which police precincts get the most officers, where building code inspections should be targeted, and even what metrics are used to rate a teacher. Experts say that few, if any, major cities in the United States require transparency for those computer instructions, or algorithms.
Tagged on: August 27, 2017
DeVos Invested in Company Under Investigation for Misleading Claims | Education Week →
When U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos increased her family's financial stake in Neurocore this spring, the controversial "neurofeedback" company was under investigation by an advertising-industry self-regulatory group for making questionable claims about its treatments for such conditions as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and memory loss.
Tagged on: August 27, 2017
Sonos says users must accept new privacy policy or devices may "cease to function" | ZDNet →
"The customer can choose to acknowledge the policy, or can accept that over time their product may cease to function," the spokesperson said.
Tagged on: August 27, 2017
Companies are using AI to screen candidates now with HireVue | Ladders →
Using voice and face recognition software, HireVue lets employers compare a candidate’s word choice, tone, and facial movements with the body language and vocabularies of their best hires. The algorithm can analyze all of these candidates’ responses and rank them, so that recruiters can spend more time looking at the top performing answers.
Tagged on: August 26, 2017
Facebook Figured Out My Family Secrets, And It Won't Tell Me How | Gizmodo →
What makes the results so unsettling is the range of data sources—location information, activity on other apps, facial recognition on photographs—that Facebook has at its disposal to cross-check its users against one another, in the hopes of keeping them more deeply attached to the site.
Tagged on: August 26, 2017
Are you a student? Your personal data is there for the asking | Naked Security →
Figueroa said the bottom line is that the risks from handing out that information to whoever asks is more of a threat than students, or even their parents, realize. “It’s a treasure trove of PII that you can use to do all kinds of things,” she said.
Tagged on: August 26, 2017
The Secret to a Good Robot Teacher | The New York Times →
Why is educational technology such a disappointment?
Tagged on: August 26, 2017
An insider’s take on the future of coding bootcamps | TechCrunch →
How could two coding bootcamps close while employer demand for bootcamp grads grows? The answer, in the five years since their founding, is that "some schools are still at Version 1 while others continue to innovate." Maybe, maybe not...
Tagged on: August 26, 2017
Can computers enhance the work of teachers? The debate is on | News-Sentinel.com →
As schools struggle to raise high school graduation rates and close the persistent achievement gap for minority and low-income students, many educators tout digital technology in the classroom as a way forward. But experts caution that this approach still needs more scrutiny and warn schools and parents against being overly reliant on computers.
Tagged on: August 26, 2017
“Users have no insight into what [the app is] doing, so ‘lazy’ and ‘malicious’ are indistinguishable,” Strafach told The Post. “I personally think it is a bit negligent to release something without knowing exactly what it does or how it could affect users.”
Tagged on: August 23, 2017
Germans force Microsoft to scrap future pushy Windows 10 upgrades | The Register →
Microsoft sparked fury when it aggressively pushed its Windows 10 operating system onto people's PCs – from unexpected downloads to surprise installations. Now a consumer rights group has forced Redmond to promise it will never do it again, in Germany at least.
Tagged on: August 23, 2017
Worst government leak: clueless agency moved everything to "The Cloud" | Privacy News Online →
"Sweden’s Transport Agency moved all of its data to “the cloud”, apparently unaware that there is no cloud, only somebody else’s computer. In doing so, it exposed and leaked every conceivable top secret database: fighter pilots, SEAL team operators, police suspects, people under witness relocation. Names, photos, and home addresses: the list is just getting started. The responsible director has been found guilty in criminal court of the whole affair, and sentenced to the harshest sentence ever seen in Swedish government: she was docked half a month’s paycheck."
Tagged on: August 23, 2017
Inside the Kids' Privacy Zone | CommonSense Kids Action →
This report examines five "pressing" privacy developments: smart toys and smart homes; virtual and augmented reality; digital citizenship; targeted ads; and, edtech. I don't agree with the take on everything here, but interesting nonetheless.
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
100% of government IT workers said employees are biggest threat to cybersecurity | TechRepublic →
Reminder: Public schools are run by state and local governments. The lack of internal training and investment in cybersecurity-related policy development and practices is responsible for a large proportion of K-12 data breaches.
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
A Textbook Dilemma: Digital or Paper? | The Hechinger Report →
Do we learn better from printed books than digital versions? The answer from researchers is a qualified yes.
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
How tech helped blind students 'watch' the solar eclipse | CNET →
A revolutionary device called Graphiti displays tactile images in near real time. It helped students and adults who are blind or visually impaired experience the recent solar eclipse in near real time. That's never been done before.
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
Singapore Schools to Connect Student Accounts to Fingerprints | FindBiometrics →
Starting next year, students at schools in Singapore will be able to buy lunch and other goods using just their fingerprints, thanks to a biometric payments system announced by the Minister for Education.
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
Children’s Learning With Tablet Technology is Often Too Passive | UT News →
Joan Hughes writes: "Can tablets teach children basic math and reading skills? As a professor who studies technology integration in K-12 schools, I can say the answer is yes but with some critical caveats."
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
Denver Public Schools push for smarter data-sharing approach | edscoop →
Data interoperability between districts and vendors can be chaotic and messy. Denver’s director of technology would like to change that.
Tagged on: August 22, 2017
There Will be Blood – GDPR and EdTech | Eylan Ezekiel →
"New EU regulations look set to bring some light into the often shady ‘Oil Rush’ in EdTech, drilling for data from our schools. Individuals will have new and powerful rights to their personal data, and organisations will have to show what use that information has been put to."
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
GDPR: A Data Regulation to Watch | Educause Review →
If your school/institution serves international students, it is time to get to know the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency | The New York Times →
Focused on the theft of bitcoin held in smartphone wallets, the article describes how "hackers have discovered that one of the most central elements of online security — the mobile phone number — is also one of the easiest to steal." Huge implications when an individual's cellphone number is the key to their online identity. Remember, too: FIDO U2F key > authenticator app on your phone > SMS authentication > no second factor authentication.
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
Schools begin online NAPLAN trials amid concerns | The Educator →
Australia gears up for large-scale computer-based student testing: "Hundreds of Australian schools have begun trialing the online version of NAPLAN this week following major upgrades of their ICT systems."
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
Sensor tracks who is driving in your neighbourhood | BBC News →
Flock's sensor, which it offers for $50 a year per house, logs the number plates of every car that drives into a street and takes a picture. The sensor could eventually provide facial recognition. Residents of monitored neighbourhoods can opt-out of being tracked - but visitors, or people passing through, cannot. Flock is backed by Y Combinator, a start-up “incubator” which in the past has funded successes including Dropbox, Reddit and AirBnB.
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
Why universities can’t be expected to police copyright infringement | The Conversation →
Collecting anonymized data for the purposes of distributing royalties is one thing, but broad copyright surveillance and enforcement is not a job for universities.
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
Should Professors Ban Laptops? | Education Next →
"We do not claim that all computer use in the classroom is harmful. Exercises where computers or tablets are deliberately used may, in fact, improve student performance. Rather, our results relate to classes where using computers or tablets for note-taking is optional. Further, it was beyond the scope of our study to identify how computer and tablet access lowered test scores."
Tagged on: August 21, 2017
Is failure to use technology to enhance learning failing school pupils? | Liberal Democrat Voice →
Do Summit Public Schools have international ambitions?
Tagged on: August 20, 2017
State official: Lack of tech should be no hindrance | The Daily Item →
The lack of technology in the form of computers, tablets and other devices should not be a hindrance to learning, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education.
Tagged on: August 20, 2017
Who Owns the Internet? | The New Yorker →
Thirty years ago, almost no one used the Internet for anything. Today, just about everybody uses it for everything. Even as the Web has grown, however, it has narrowed. Google now controls nearly ninety per cent of search advertising, Facebook almost eighty per cent of mobile social traffic, and Amazon about seventy-five per cent of e-book sales.
Tagged on: August 20, 2017
Mobile devices drive student suspensions | The West Australian →
In Australia, public school students were handed more than 2000 suspensions last year for offences such as cyber bullying, using mobile phones to film fights or sharing hateful or inappropriate material online.
Tagged on: August 19, 2017
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