As we enter this new era of blended/hybrid classrooms, the clamor of ed-tech entrepreneurs pitching their digital curricula is getting to be truly overwhelming for parents. Rather than critiquing individual programs, I have laid out a set of ten questions that parents should be asking their child’s teachers and school administrators. Feel free to share and/or print it out and bring it with you to back-to-school night. I’d love to know what the response is.
1. Does the program require aggregating PII (personally identifiable information) from students to function properly? And even if it doesn’t REQUIRE it, does the program collect PII?
2. Does the program supplement face-to-face human instruction, or function as a substitute for it? How many minutes per day of face-to-face human instruction is being sacrificed or substituted? Will it lead to increased class sizes?
3. Does the program encourage active student-to-student engagement and face-to-face discussion? How does it accomplish this? Or does it create an environment where kids are often working in isolation with their devices? How much of the time are students working alone with their devices?
4. What are the associated costs with respect to your district’s budget (not just the program fees, but the devices required to operate it) and how will participation in the program affect other areas of the student experience? For example given the austerity budgets many districts are experiencing, implementing a 1:1 device program to support digital curriculum could impact a school’s ability to offer art instruction, employ a school librarian, or provide a full range of extracurricular activities.
5. How much screen time is involved, per day? per week? Consider the health impacts of machine-mediated teaching, especially on elementary school-age children.
6. Does the program offer “training” or “education?” There is a difference.
7. Will participating in the program expand student awareness of the larger world and allow them to engage with it on their own terms, or is it a way to channel students into a particular workforce sector?
8. Does the program monitor, tutor, or assess behavior and social-emotional aspects of learning?
9. Assuming the program is used during the school day, what is this program replacing? What aspect(s) of instruction formerly offered will be eliminated if this program is implemented?
What percentage of instructional time being turned over to outsourced online education results in your neighborhood school no longer fully being YOUR school? 10 percent? 25 percent? 40 percent?
Reblogged this on Poetic Justice and commented:
I am reblogging these important questions to ask. The BIG QUESTION is – are our children being taught by profession human teachers or are they being taught by inhuman technology? What do you want for your children and grandchildren? I want a human in control of teaching and learning.
Reblogged this on Parents Across America Puget Sound.
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I believe that another question that should be asked is whether or not these programs are accessible to students with print disabilities. Oftentimes, these programs do not have an audio feature. It is ridiculous in this day and age not to make the software accessible to everyone.
But Mel, software and digital learning is WORSE; so why would you want them accessible to anyone? The covid sham has really shown us that digital learning is BS