Technology Won't Fix America's Neediest Schools -- It Makes Bad Education Worse

theodp writes: In an adapted excerpt from Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology, Univ. of Michigan prof Kentaro Toyama begins: "'Technology is a game-changer in the field of education,'" Education Secretary Arne Duncan once said, and there was a time when I would have agreed. Over the last decade, I've built, used, and studied educational technology in countries around the world. As a computer scientist and former Microsoft employee, I wanted nothing more than to see innovation triumph in the classroom. But no matter how good the design, and despite rigorous tests of impact, I have never seen technology systematically overcome the socio-economic divides that exist in education. Children who are behind need high-quality adult guidance more than anything else. Many people believe that technology 'levels the playing field' of learning, but what I've discovered is that it does no such thing."

Comments

Shouldn't this be obvious?

[schklerg]

I've yet to see any technology that can overcome bad process, bad practice, and bad planning. Why should education be any different?

Marketing may try to sell a magic fix, but reality seems to always win.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[Vermonter]

It's like saying that handing out new hammers to a bunch of carpenters will make the bad ones good. A tool can only enhance quality, not create it.

Re:Shouldn't this be obvious?

[tnk1]

Back in the day, my own anecdotal experience was that disruption is a big deal. I sat in both honors classes and "regular" classes back in the day. There was a huge difference in how much you learned based on how disruptive the class was. When I was in a class filled with kids who were dedicated to getting good grades and learning things, you got shit done. I learned less, had less taught to me, and was less able to concentrate in the regular class. I still personally got good grades, but that was because the class was dumbed down so much, it was hard to understand how anyone could have done poorly, let alone failed those classes, even without being a nerd.

In the end, I realized that I worked to get in honors classes as much to simply not be in the regular classes as I did to excel. You literally could not learn even easier things very well in a disruptive class.

Personally, I think we need to pick out the disruptive cases, get them in smaller classes with more structure, and get them out of the way of people who want to learn. Then everyone, including the disruptive kids, will probably be more successful.