Technology Won’t Save Our Schools

“Education technology has seen over $3 billion of venture capital investment in the last two years. A corresponding rise in education outcomes, however, has been much more elusive. Why?

If the prevailing myths of Silicon Valley — which shape the motivations and rhetoric of the edtech industry— are to be believed, then technology should be a boon for reinventing student learning. But education is complicated. The social, economic, and political factors that contribute to educational outcomes are complex and technology plays only one part of a very complicated equation.

So far, edtech has only contributed small improvements rather than the large, scalable and systemic disruption to which it might aspire. In fact, large-scale attempts to implement technology at scale through 1-to-1 tablet initiatives in major school districts have proven more frustrating than fruitful.”

By Austin Dannhaus