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Facebook's Solution To 'One of Education's Biggest Problems' Is a Dashboard
theodp writes: Gushing in July that Facebook engineers had solved one of education's biggest problems, Melinda Gates perhaps set up Segway-like expectations for Facebook's education software. And while The Verge sings the praises of what appears to be progress-tracking dashboards that connect students to mostly free 3rd-party lessons — not unlike Khan Academy or even the 50-year-old PLATO system — it's hard to get jazzed based on the screenshots (1, 2, 3) that Facebook provided in a .zip file accompanying its announcement. The "personalized learning plan" dashboards are a joint effort of Facebook and the Meg Whitman-led and backed Summit charter schools. In a nice circle-of-tech-CEO-education-reform-life twist, the first Summit high school opened in a building in Redwood City after students attending the Bill Gates-touted and backed Silicon Valley High Tech High charter there were evicted to make way, and the Gates Foundation is now spending $8M to bring HP CEO Whitman's Summit charter schools — and presumably Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personalized learning plans — to Seattle children.
I'm not sure if this is a total load of bollocks, or if it doesn't actually say anything at all.
posted by theodp it's 50-50.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And the state Supreme Court just ruled that charter schools are Unconstitutional in Washington state.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/wa...
Screenshot 3: Looks like whoever created the Demo Student data was an ICP fan. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvmvxAcT_Yc
Do you see it now? The end is near!
we don't need no stinkin' dashboard.
We're entering a future where only affluent children will be able to get educated, and the poor and large portions of the middle class will have a shrinking pool of options available.
Charter schools are BS. Tech in the classrooms are BS as there is NEVER a budget to maintain it. Standardized testing is BS.
What works? Traditional teaching. One teacher with a small class size (think 25 students) who can give them individual attention and relate to them. It really is that simple.
But, there's no money for the tech industry in traditional teaching, so they have to invent new ways to turn it into a cash-generating enterprise.
The article summary was a bit of a hash, but a per-student dashboard that customized learning and displayed progress made would be a pretty great step up from the Mass Education we have today, that ignores student interests or rates of learning on various topics.
As a parent who would not not want a dashboard like that to keep track of what students are doing well and poorly in? Report cards do that but with less frequency and thus opportunity to correct problems as they arise.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What they're trying to do is actually make a stable, scalable web service using Windows. It's like putting a man on the moon!
There are two things that are going to be a reality. One is that students are going to receive personalized instruction. Most schools already expect this is some way, but it is cost ineffective. Automation through software will make this personalized instruction possible, and while the technology is improving, it is far from adequate for some subjects. For instance physics is increasingly taught through exploration and modeling. Just letting some students listen to a lecture and other students read and then pass a multiple guess test does not teach physics. Students have to go through certain labs. The personlization might be how a lab is set up, which still requires significant human intervention and discussion with a live professional, though eventually an AI might be able to do it. Second, despite what the luddites say every student is going to have a computer and every student is going to need to learn to use it. While there are some jobs that require limited computer literacy, those jobs are going to become fewer. I mean everyone says how great education was in the 50's but what did they really need to get a well paying job? Not as much as today. As students get computers, they will be used to personalize when possible. Otherwise they will be used to teach kids the skills they need to get a job.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I could see a dashboard holding my interest under the right circumstances.
Have gnu, will travel.
This may help in a private school where they have selected great, motivated teachers and all of the students are driven. They were going to do well without this tool anyways.
It's not going to make a difference in the classroom with an unmotivated teacher, the kids are doing their time, and the goal is to get the students to pass the standardized tests so that the school can get it's funding for another year. A lot of problems with education are societal and creating a dashboard doesn't deal with those. You need to create safe environments for the children with a parent/guardian who can provide the necessities without working three jobs. Then get teachers who are motivated, well trained, and well equipped. Then worry about stuff like this.
Of course tech companies want trained worker bees pouring from high school classrooms around the world. Ask yourself what is the biggest expense for these companies- of course; workers! How can they reduce that expense to satisfy their investors? By reducing payroll costs. How to do that? By increasing competition for jobs to the extent that new hires will be happy with minimum wage. And the way to do that is to assure that millions of adequately skilled programmers emerge from high schools every year.
(I haven't mentioned the cheap foreign labor pouring into the US, thanks to the efforts of these same corporate 'visionaries'.)
I suggest that this is a very poor career choice for American ten year olds. Most programming will be automated. Small code segments from large projects will done as piecework by the lowest bidder in an online exchange. Demands on coders will increase, rewards will fade. The aspiring 'code warrior' will have become a starving code monkey and there will be no money in it for anyone but Wall Street and marketers.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I refuse to believe this paragraph was written by a living, breathing human
I am happy to see I am not alone scratching my head after reading this thing.
Or, in the case of your typical business executive: one dashboard. Business executives sure love their dashboards. Every walk of life should have one. How does anyone know what's going on without a dashboard?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
And what they are forced to teach. I mean, if you are teaching creationist nonsense, then you really do not have any other real problem besides selection of teaching material (and that teachers are willing to tech it instead of finding other jobs). Technology addresses zero teaching problems. Technology only addresses the issue that some companies want to make even more money.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I want my GPS to have a screen saver that I can modify. I'd make it a bobble-head Jesus. Once, while taking a break and driving randomly around the southern part of the United States I searched high and low for a bobble-head Jesus. I could not find one. When I stopped at various Christian book stores and asked, including that giant-ass cross outside of Amarillo, TX, they looked at me as if I were a heretic. I suppose I am but a bobble-head Jesus would be most awesome.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I want my GPS to have a screen saver that I can modify. I'd make it a bobble-head Jesus. Once, while taking a break and driving randomly around the southern part of the United States I searched high and low for a bobble-head Jesus. I could not find one. When I stopped at various Christian book stores and asked, including that giant-ass cross outside of Amarillo, TX, they looked at me as if I were a heretic. I suppose I am but a bobble-head Jesus would be most awesome.
Here you go!
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
People have passionate and very divergent opinions, for good reasons.
But I think we can all agree on one thing when it comes to designing education policy for our kids: Meg Whitman, Mark Zuckerburg, and Bill Gates should have no part in it.