Edtech Reconsidered
Recurring ideas in educational technology (Part 1 of 3)
Dear Reader,
Happy Spring!
Below is the first of three posts considering the impact of educational technology on classrooms, particularly elementary classrooms. At first, I thought I could write a shorter description of some of the recent history and research, in addition to recommending a few books on the subject. As I got to writing, I realized there is a lot to say, and it would be unfair to dive into a topic that I had spent several years reading and thinking about without, in a sense, “showing my work.”
More than ever, students are asked to spend significant instructional time on screens in school. Teachers are asked to ensure students are engaged with mandated programs, and they are often held accountable if students do not meet the quotas for time spent on the programs. It is not uncommon to walk through a school hallway and see entire classrooms of students on laptops or tablets while a teacher circulates or works with a few students at a time. In the last decade, schools have transformed into places where screens pervade almost every space, not just a separate computer lab. This transformation hasn’t come cheap with school districts investing billions in education technology every year. It behooves us to interrogate the questions: What is the evidence for these investments? Do they, or do they not, improve outcomes for students? What are the best practices for teachers to implement in their classrooms?
This topic is also personal to me. When I first began my teaching career in Detroit, I worked in a unique district formed under Michigan’s Emergency Manager law. The administrators of the district decided to launch an educational experiment with blended learning across fifteen of the lowest performing K-12 schools. All of these schools served low-income families. With 1:1 computers, families were promised their child would receive a “personalized learning plan,” and the school would meet each child “at their level.” This was all in service of “student-centered learning.” The experiment failed, and the district was dissolved. Perhaps now, as a much more experienced educator, I could find more success in that context. But that would not change the tragic scale at which this district failed, or the fact that it was a state-sanctioned experiment on historically underserved families who did not have the political power to advocate for anything else. In my third and final post, I will discuss more about my own experiences and how they have shaped who I am as an educator today. I tell you all this now so you know that my experiences are the baggage I bring into this analysis, though I try hard to monitor my own biases in the hopes of preventing any unfair take-aways.
In Part 1, I begin with some of the history and ideas critical to a conversation about education technology in schools. Part 2 will address pedagogical assumptions and implications of the education technology sold to schools. In Part 3, I will share more of my own story. I will also reflect on the role technology can and should play in classrooms. All of the views are my own, and they are not representative of any current or past employers.
Cheers,
Erin
Thesean Ideas
Technology is human innovation. For thousands of years, humans have invented tools that enhance our abilities and improve our quality of life. The alphabet is an invention. Papyrus, parchment, and paper are inventions. Pens and pencils. The printing press. And many of these tools enhanced and improved education. Our classroom libraries and projectors may be some of yesteryear’s educational technologies, but they are educational technologies all the same.
But there are particular kinds of educational technologies that set the twentieth century apart. These are technologies characterized by what I call “Thesean” ideas.
The myth of Theseus’ ship goes something like this: In the ancient Greek city of Athens, the city’s great hero, Theseus, had a ship upon which he returned to the city after slaying the minotaur and rescuing the youth of Athens. (Intrigued?That story is the original Hunger Games.) Over time, the ship aged and needed boards replaced. The process continued until not a single board from the original ship remained, prompting the famous philosophical conundrum: Was the ship still the same ship that Theseus sailed?
I will not step into that debate, but it’s a useful metaphor for this discussion. Even though the materials of Theseus’ ship changed, the shape and template did not. The idea of the ship stayed the same.
Thesean ideas litter the education landscape. I will address three here:
Edtech products can provide students with effective individualized learning opportunities, which will improve their learning.
Edtech products will allow a teacher to more efficiently instruct students.
Students will be more motivated to learn with edtech products than they otherwise would be.
Same Ideas, Different Packaging
In her book Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning, Audrey Watters explores the earliest attempts to use machines in classrooms. The first one was created in the 1920s. Though the machines were mechanical devices powered by gears, not computers powered by software, similar ideas underpin their design and how they were advertised to schools.
“Programmed instruction was individualized instruction. Meyer Markle likened it to the work of a tutor, “a master of intellectual teasing” who adjusts the lesson to her student’s needs but also challenges the student to keep moving forward. If the tutorial relationship was the ideal—something that many educators, often invoking the ancient Greeks, seemed to believe—then programmed instruction sought to become the technological version of this: “Each student was now to have his own private tutor, encased in a small box,” Meyer Markle wrote.” (Watters, 2021)
Students were expected to sit at individual desks in front of their own machine. The programs were set. Students would use levers to input responses to questions. If correct, they were either given more difficult questions or moved on to explanations of new content. If incorrect, they would receive a correct explanation. The teacher could then intervene if students were consistently stuck or incorrect, but teacher attention was often focused on maintaining classroom order and supporting students in correctly using the machines.
The creators of these machines, such as famed behaviorist B.F. Skinner, endeavored to craft programs that could respond to the performance of the students, effectively tailoring instruction to the individual student. And yet, despite significant financial investments, these ambitions were not realized. In an interview with NEA Today, Watters sums up one of the core problems of the mechanized programs: “The Ohio State students who responded to Pressey's machine said it did nothing to reduce the drudgery of taking tests. It was cool, cutting edge technology, but after a while, it was still boring.” Teaching machines were intended to be personalized, efficient, and motivating, though in reality they tended to be rigid and dull.
In the story of teaching machines, all three of the “Thesean” ideas mentioned above appear. The learning is “individualized,” allowing teachers to be more effective “tutors,” leading to more intellectual engagement on the part of students. In the end, they were unfulfilled promissory notes.
Teaching machines were not the twentieth century’s only attempt to harness technological advances for education. In the 1930s, programs emerged using radio technology. In the 1960s, Congress imposed reforms in American Samoa, which required the majority of the students to learn through educational television. (Check out Watters’ survey of what happened in American Samoa at her blog Hack Education.)
In the above British newsreel, the narrator states: “Through television, the people of American Samoa are solving their own educational problems and the new generation of Samoans are reaching new educational levels, which will enable them to take their place successfully in world society.”
While educational television did not attempt to “individualize” instruction, it did make familiar Thesean claims about being more efficient and motivating to students. And, like other fads, the experiment ended in the 1970s.
The More Things Change…
My high school world history teacher always said: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” In the advertisements pushing the adoption of new edtech products, we hear the Thesean echoes of past initiatives. Here are a few I found:
“Engaging and personalized math instruction for all students”
“Personalized learning”
“Encouraging student ownership”
“Builds internal motivation”
“Supports joyful and inclusive instruction”
“Make learning accessible…enables teachers to scaffold instruction”
“Meet the learning needs of any student and the teachers who support them”
“Empowers educators”
Some of the above quotes are pulled from product websites that I use and like. The invention of the printing press was a boon to dispersing knowledge and education, but it doesn’t mean every book ever printed merits our reading or attention. The same goes with any product. Unfortunately, many products use the exact same language to promote their wares, and it is not always evident to the district leader or classroom teacher how to differentiate quality. In Part 2, I will dig into the pedagogical assumptions of these programs. When educators better understand how edtech products are designed, we are better equipped to determine when and how to use a product. We are also better able to say when to not use a product.
Extra Credit
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” - Jorge Luis Borges
Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920 by Larry Cuban
Great read, Erin. Glad to connect with you years later.