Tech in schools has a messy middle
From what I can tell, the polar opposite ends of the technology-in-education spectrum are the best places to be. Everything in between, the messy middle, is a nightmare.
One end is the zero-percent tech approach. Old school pen, paper, chalkboards, and textbooks. It’s worked for decades and it’ll work now! No worries about tech policies or distractions in the classroom because there’s no need.
The other end is a true full embrace of technology, namely AI, to run the show as a personalized tutor. This is the Alpha School method. It’s unproven (or proven on only a small scale), but it uses tech as the delivery method of educational value. I’m very bullish on this theory of education and am excited to see how it grows.
Unfortunately, the Frankenstein’s monster of these two approaches is what currently passes for tech in education. Kids need to learn math, and they’re in a classroom with a teacher to teach them, but the school provides them all with iPads to write out their math homework that the teacher will grade electronically?
Or even beyond the classroom, kids can have phones in their lockers, but not in their pockets, and use it during breaks and lunch time, but not during class time. This was my lived high school experience. I can assure you phones were a constant source of distraction and drama. All students broke the rules, and policy enforcement was different depending on the teacher.
Everyone, teachers and administrators included, wasted sinful amounts of time trying to figure out the “right tech policy” related to phones, iPads, laptops, and other tech. We were bogged down in the messy middle.
While I was thinking about this idea, a perfect example popped up on my X timeline:
If that’s not a perfect display of this messy middle, I’m not sure what is.