In this November 29, 2019 file photo, a metal head made of motor parts symbolizes artificial intelligence (AI) at the Essen Motor Show for Tuning and Motorsport in Essen, Germany. .
AP File Photo/Martin Meissner
Recommendations for federal education reform from the Rennie Center for Educational Research and Policy [“Report highlights flexibility, tech in ed,” Recorder, Feb. 5] It was very interesting at first. Encouraging schedule flexibility, emphasizing ways to share responsibilities, and suggesting ways to vary students' workdays all have great positive potential.
What completely chilled me was the part later in the article where it was revealed that these recommendations were expected to be implemented primarily online or through shared computer programs. The Center therefore acknowledges that its strategy “needs to be paralleled by investments in making computers and the Internet more accessible.”
In my career as an educator, I have seen that introducing technology into the classroom is an absolute necessity, and it inevitably not only brings about phenomenal results, but also subtly changes whether or not we are good teachers. This has become the gloomy mantra of those surrounding the education world.
So, under pressure to miss out on the impending promise of good things, school districts across the country are making tremendous investments in technology, hardware, software, licenses, internet access, teacher training, and, of course, technical staff. Pourd billions of dollars into it. To maintain some level of functionality. Still, in the decade leading up to the coronavirus-induced school closures, comprehensive test scores were steadily declining in schools in Massachusetts and across the country.
Did the increased reliance on technology in the classroom have any impact on the decline in educational effectiveness across the country? This downward trend was completely disrupted during the shutdown period when education went completely online. is an issue that should be considered very thoroughly.
Regardless of whether they are related or not, it is clear that technology has been completely ineffective in driving improved educational outcomes over the years, despite budget-busting spending.
But now the Rennie Center is reasserting its feeble promise that locking children online for “distance learning” somehow improves educational outcomes, despite significant evidence to the contrary.
But I wonder if cracks are not starting to appear in the Great Wall of Technological Fundamentalism. Two quotes from the article jumped out at me. The first is a surprisingly threatening statement in which one of the center's representatives is quoted as saying, “We cannot stop the infiltration of artificial intelligence (AI) into schools.”
The speaker's choice of the word “osmosis” is certainly ominous. Is this inevitability considered a hostile takeover? Does the darkness of that word also include despair? We all have only a vague idea of the possible applications of AI in the classroom and important hints about the technical, academic, moral, and personal issues that will arise. not. But there are those just as quick to happily push AI into children's classrooms. Because very few people have the courage to say “no” and they can actually facilitate “penetration”.
That's not yet. We won't know until we find out how and why, and whether it has any significant benefits.
The second quote acknowledges that “kids…are more able to use Zoom in middle school or high school than in elementary school.” Are they “likely to work”? It seems like the speakers' expectations for technology were so bleak that he needed to provide them with such a low bar. If you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars in total, there is a “high probability” that some of it will “work”.
So far, it is clear that investments in technology have not had a positive impact on educational outcomes. The recommendations made despite this fact have gained traction because most people in the world are intimidated by technology, bland and, in the case of AI, completely ignorant assurances that support its fundamentalists. It's only because they're being pushed around.
It's time for outsiders to stop pushing ever-changing technology into schools and promising miracles while expecting teachers to do well based on their own wishful thinking.
Stephen Hussey lives in Greenfield.
