Blended Content1. Statement of the problem (7 minutes): The talk will kick off with a framing of the boom and bust cycles of edtech -- inviting the audience to list the hype cycles they've been through before.
2. Reframing the problem (6 minutes): This will transition to an examination of how these problems are framed, including by industry and in research. This framing almost universally focuses on "evidence," "transformation," "personalization," and "learning outcomes" while ignoring what teachers know intuitively: that edtech doesn't just impact learning that it affects and is shaped by classroom culture. And even some of the most "effective" tools, including those for personalization, alienate students from teachers and kill the joy of learning. This section will conclude with a return to Seymour Papert -- who argued this close to 40 years ago!
3. A new framework (7 minutes): To bring classroom culture into the fold, we need to reimagine the systems and rubrics we use to vet, select, and evaluate tools in schools. This section, focused on reflecting on defining classroom culture, will invite the audience to list the values they want to see reflected in edtech. This section will conclude with a visual framework that shows how these values can be incorporated into edtech vetting and evaluation.
4. What you can do (10 minutes): The concluding section of the talk will provide practical suggestions for how to get started on the path of centering classroom culturein edtech selection, vetting, and evaluation. This will included steps administrators and educators can take to articulate their vision for classroom culture, ways to gather baseline data on edtech's broader impacts, and examples of improvements to edtech vetting rubrics.
This article serves as a companion to this talk and features some key references: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-04-12-it-s-time-to-ditch-the-idea-of-edtech-disruption-but-what-comes-next
Back
Trips and Tours