Comment by wffurr
21 days ago
>> much of math education seems to have been farmed out to really crappy software and short video clips running on chromebooks
Our local school committee is debating this currently. There was a book mentioned "Ditch That Textbook" about using EdTech to reimagine curriculums. I have a hard time imagining actual high quality math education not using a textbook, and I don't really see how crappy software (and I do not for a second doubt that most ed tech is crappy - almost all software is crappy really, it's a total tragedy and a separate discussion) can possibly do better.
Personally I'd like to see fewer Chromebooks and iPads and such in classrooms and more textbooks and notebooks. I'm open to being convinced I'm just a curmudgeon, but it'll take real results in schools to do so.
The tech world is often criticized for being trend obsessed but it seems to happen in education quite often too. My high school was built in the 1970s during the wall-less open learning community fad. That flopped hard and the school ended up with several different physical hacks for dividing up those spaces into something resembling a traditional classroom. The chemistry lab was the only room to get actual masonry walls. Most everywhere else had what were little more than oversize cubicle partitions, which meant noise from every class ended up leaking into every other class. It is baffling that anyone thought having a high school without walls was a good idea, but our high school was far from being the only one built that way during that time period.
Huh I guess that might explain my school's section of classes that had super shitty "movable" walls that never moved.
Sometimes it just takes a motivated teacher to do things differently: https://fivetwelvethirteen.substack.com/p/tech-free-january
Data's probably not out whether digital makes a difference. But it sure doesn't stop the spending and the resultant political gravy train for anyone involved. Common Core was another epic investment without returns, but that didn't matter either.
I absolutely think that there is a better way to educate than tests and textbooks...however I'm certain we haven't found the perfect formula, and videos and chromebooks significantly worse. Different is not better.
> absolutely think that there is a better way to educate than tests and textbooks
Genuine question: why? Specifically, why with textbooks?
Even if textbooks are suboptimal, they’re the way a lot of human information is organized. Just developing the skill of being able to work through a textbook is probably massively productive.
I picked "tests and textbooks" mostly due to the alliteration, and the association with traditional education methods.
The comment was also a bit facecios. I'd be surprised if we have arrived at the absolute best way to do anything - so of course there will be some better way to educate.
We’re thinking of sending our son to a highly ranked local private school who has a policy of not doing anything like this with tech.
Students are also not allowed personal devices while school is in session, and social media ban for under 16s is hopefully coming here too (New Zealand).
Colour me a curmudgeon too but a screen doesn’t need to be in front of a student all hours of the day to learn.