I recently wrote an article regarding the negative influence of big tech on education published on the substack, Public Big Tech Hubris And Greed Behind Digital Education Failure. If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to do so.
Technology is being pushed at every angle in the education field. The onslaught of emails and articles discussing the transformative and innovative ways that technology can be used to educate can be overwhelming. The insidious message implied throughout all the dialogue surrounding edtech is ultimately that the algorithm or AI program inside a computer is better suited to teach children than an actual teacher in front of them. After all, we are raising digital natives and need to educate children to prepare them for 21st century skills. I disagree, we are raising humans first.
Recently, Bill Gates was quoted “If we think about the next 10 years, [in terms of] both the absolute level of learning and the gap with lower-income, minority students ... these new tools can both close the gap and raise up the overall level of achievement,” . Based on the decline in both test scores and youth mental health over the last ten years, this next generation of students can’t afford another 10 years of this “education stuff” that Bill Gates influence has so graciously provided billions in funding to.
In this recent article, Gates endorses a book “Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (And Why That’s a Good Thing)' ' written by the founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan. Though I haven’t read the book and since student achievement has declined with the rise of edtech in schools, I can only assume Kahn means it's “a good thing” for tech developers pockets and not for student learning. To this date, there is no strong research to show the benefits of online learning.
An alarming amount of products that promote AI in education are actively being pushed without being properly vetted or studied. Since money is not an obstacle for these tech companies, they have unlimited budgets to advertise and persuasively sell their products as the next best thing in education.
A recent email I received from Powerschool shared this, How to Secure Funding for AI. Sadly, it encourages educators to use funding from sources such as Title I (a federal education program meant to support low income students) to secure funding for AI in their schools.
Gates is also openly discussing his desire to change the way math is taught using AI, along with his commitment to fund this change (see here). The reality that seems largely ignored by the tech industry is that learning math through an online platform is challenging and creates more of a barrier to learning, the opposite of what they claim.
A study published in 2020, The Benefits of Using Pencil and Paper in Math, finds that although more research is needed, when students write down math problems it Increases high school math outcomes. I find it curious that there is no research demonstrating that for students, completing math online is better than using paper and pencil. With all the profits these tech companies have seen in the last decade, you would think they would be able to back up their claims.
The numerous harms of excessive screen time have been documented and it is estimated that children are spending over 9 hours a day looking at a screen. Observing what is happening in many schools, I suspect the true number of hours is even higher. Tech executives are clearly aware of the dangers and have the luxury of sending their own children to private schools that don’t allow tech to be used in younger grades and severely limit it with older kids. (Inside A Tech-Free School Where Tech Executives Send Their Kids ).
How do those with interests in big tech push their products?
When the results come back and these tech products don’t deliver, the excuses flow. The article The 5 Percent Problem excitedly talks about research (questionably funded by big tech) that revealed that students made progress when they used the various online math programs for the amount of time prescribed. The problem was that only 5% of students did. Michael Horn, a longtime voice in the edtech sphere, reinforced that in order for students to improve in math using these online programs, they need to use them more. In this Forbes article, Horn compares prescribed online math programs to prescribed medicine from a doctor. If the prescription is not followed accurately, then you won't see the desired results. I found the analogy to the pharmaceutical industry ironic.
Horn also discusses ways to motivate young learners through technology. “The basic idea is that some students seem to respond best when they receive more feedback and stimulation so that they can get a good feeling from the rush of dopamine. With “normal” levels of feedback and stimulation, they get bored and tune out” states Horn.
The quiet part is now being said out loud. Those involved financially with edtech are associating children’s learning with dopamine hits. These dopamine hits are the same “hits” created and used by social media companies and game designers to keep their addicts “using”. The same way that creators of slot machines keep gambling addicts “using” their devices too. By their design, the more edtech gives kids a dopamine hit while “using” their product, the more they will keep “using”, I mean learn.
I listened to a recent podcast on Horn’s Future of Education while he discussed changes to make math class more meaningful with his guest, Diane Tavenner. I was struck when the conversation turned to their future view of teaching math to children. They describe starting in kindergarten, children could use personalized online learning programs for as long as needed (“1, 2, or 3 hours a day” if needed!). They view the teacher as just monitors and coaches for the students and even claimed that the teacher won't need to have any math training to do so. Just let the algorithms lead the way!
I am not a math teacher nor specialist but I have sat with enough children attempting to complete math problems through these digital programs to know they don’t work. As an adult, I felt the knot in my stomach grow as I sat reading a computer screen trying to complete the math problems. There is no doubt, the children I sat next to felt the same way.
One 10 year old child confessed to breaking his computer screen out of frustration. Kids' brains just aren’t developed and able to process the information presented in a digital format, manipulate it and then generate an answer, never mind ignoring all the other temptations from their device that are just a click away.
Let’s consider what happens when a child is completing a computer assisted test for “progress monitoring” or using an online math program. Every time an answer is provided by the student, the algorithm in the program decides what happens next. This algorithm determines if the student understood the problem solely by what a child types as their answer, an assumption of what “it” thinks “it” knows based solely on the child's keystrokes. Yet this algorithm misses entirely that there is a child, with thoughts and feelings, sitting on the other side of the screen. So much critical information about that child is lost when we remove the human connection from teaching.
The computer doesn’t understand a child’s unique learning needs such as their ability to read or attend, it doesn’t notice a small mistake that was overlooked, a number written in the wrong spot, a misplaced decimal or clarification of a direction. Most importantly a computer is not able to interpret how that student might be feeling at that moment (tired, hungry, frustrated, overwhelmed…) all cues that are read by another human being, a teacher. Personalized learning pushed by an algorithm on a computer is anything but, rather it is depersonalized and dehumanized.
When using a traditional model, children are able to use all the techniques that support comprehension of math problems (or reading) such as underlining important words, going back and rechecking answers, looking back at a previous problem and then trying again. These are critical skills that support learning are lost when it is done online. As children become frustrated and defeated, they often type in a number and wait for the program to show them how to solve the problem. This turns them into passive learners, not active.
There is a large amount of research that demonstrates that reading on paper is superior than in a digital format (see here). If reading is a foundational skill for learning, why are we using formats that degrade the ability to read and creates a barrier to comprehension and then celebrate it as transformative and personalized? The creators of these programs want you to focus on the bells and whistles occurring on the computer screen and to forget about the child on the other side.
What does this future look like?
We must not forget that we are raising children first, not data points. The vision of children in classrooms sitting around a computer screen as an adult wanders the room should scare you. Yet this reality is not as far away as you think. Check out the picture below of a new early learning center geared towards children ages 3-8, being celebrated in Massachusetts:
Rather than a welcoming and engaging classroom filled with toys for free play and areas to explore and learn, this sterile classrooms seem more like Google office suits complete with a large TV screen to hook up to any computer! Actually scratch that, the office spaces at Google look way more fun…
I talk with many parents and educators in my own work as a public school speech pathologist and owner of a small private clinic as well as many friends I have in the education field. The overwhelming majority feel as if there is too much reliance on technology in schools and that children seem to be lacking many social, emotional and critical thinking skills as a result. Yet the use of technology continues to be pushed as a savior for all the learning gaps a child may have. Frustratingly, the overuse of technology in schools seems to be only increasing these learning gaps, not helping.
What can we do?
We need legislators to recognize the assault that is happening in schools and put a stop to the greed and lack of research that fuels these edtech platforms. These companies need to be held accountable for their predatory practices on the minds of children and educators.
We need organizations such as the ADA to look more critically at these online platforms since it often places yet another barrier to learning in front of children with learning differences. Just because a program may be “accessible” doesn’t mean it still isn’t discriminatory. Where are the organizations such as the Academy of Pediatrics? They need to investigate the harms that this technology is causing children and create guidelines that help reverse this trend.
Parents need to organize too and stand up against the assault on their child's brain from all this tech they are exposed to daily while they are in school, supposedly to learn. Administrators and educators need to be more skeptical of the bells and whistles being pushed through lavish conferences that these edtech platforms use to sell their products, much like the pharmaceutical companies portrayed in the Netflix series Painkillers. And finally we need teachers to speak out, question the validity of the platforms that they intuitively know are crushing students while pushing for the actual tools, like books and paper, that kids really need. Ultimately, we as a society need to recognize and remember just how sacred childhood is. After all, we are raising humans first, not digital natives.
For a detailed breakdown of the push for technology in school checkout my timeline on Environmental Progress: The Educational Technology Industrial Complex Timeline
Amen.