Hardware vs. Software

The NY Times ran a story this week questioning the value of technology in the classroom.  They cite in particular a showcase district in Arizona that has been pouring money into tech without creating any observable benefit in test scores. 

To me that story highlights a key point:  The “software”, that is the teaching practices and processes that rely on tech are critical to effective utilization.  As one teacher puts it in their signature file,

“It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”

The conclusion to draw from that isn’t that tech doesn’t matter, it’s that you need to do more then just buy stuff.  You need to think about how to use it, and adapt as you gather experience. 

Flashback:  The Social Life of Information makes the same point about business processes.

Online Education

I was impressed with this article in Harvard Magazine covering online education.  It ties together a number of threads:  Disruptive innovation, the unsustainable increases in tuition, the potential impact of dynamic programming tailor learning to the individual.  Best line:

When America’s traditional universities arose, knowledge was scarce, which meant that research and teaching had to be coupled tightly. That is no longer the case.

Even sharper is this analysis of the structural problems with traditional universities:

Examining the traditional universities through the lens of innovation, we see that a muddled business model is causing the industry’s ruinous cost increases...  A typical state university today, for example, is the equivalent of a three-way merger of the consulting firm McKinsey—focused on diagnosing and solving unstructured problems; the manufacturing operations of Whirlpool—which uses established processes to add value to things that are incomplete or broken; and Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company—in which participants exchange things to derive value: fundamentally different and incompatible business models all housed within the same organization.

Good stuff!