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Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education

Curriculum & Pedagogy STEAM Education Technology Innovation Maker Education Leadership 21st Century Skills

A leader in educational technology separates truth from hype, explaining what technology can—and can’t—do to transform our classrooms.

Proponents of large-scale learning have boldly promised that technology can disrupt traditional approaches to schooling, radically accelerating learning and democratizing education. Much-publicized experiments, often underwritten by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, have been launched at elite universities and in elementary schools in the poorest neighborhoods. Such was the excitement that, in 2012, the New York Times declared the “year of the MOOC.” Less than a decade later, that pronouncement seems premature.

In Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education, Justin Reich delivers a sobering report card on the latest supposedly transformative educational technologies. Reich takes readers on a tour of MOOCs, autograders, computerized “intelligent tutors,” and other educational technologies whose problems and paradoxes have bedeviled educators. Learning technologies—even those that are free to access—often provide the greatest benefit to affluent students and do little to combat growing inequality in education. And institutions and investors often favor programs that scale up quickly, but at the expense of true innovation. It turns out that technology cannot by itself disrupt education or provide shortcuts past the hard road of institutional change.

Technology does have a crucial role to play in the future of education, Reich concludes. We still need new teaching tools, and classroom experimentation should be encouraged. But successful reform efforts will focus on incremental improvements, not the next killer app.

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Student Session

This inspirational session is open to students from schools with a paying educator. Registration links available in conference app once you register.

Presenters

Justin Reich

Learning Scientist, MIT Teaching Systems Lab

ABOUT THE ORGANIZER

21st Century Learning International is run by highly experienced educators and delivers world class conferences and events aligning with our mission of “Building Communities of Learners”. 21CLI also provides consultancy services for schools and school groups with a special emphasis on the use of technology for administration, learning and teaching. 21CLHK is one of 6 annual conferences in the 21CLI portfolio.
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