Never trust a techie…
The need to diversify the EdTech conversation
Written by Neil Selwyn
Perhaps the least important people to be paying attention to regarding EdTech is anyone with a sustained interest in EdTech. Unfortunately, most discussions about the use of digital technologies in education continue to be driven by those who are personally invested in the topic. Yet, if digital technology is to become a genuine force for good in education then there needs to be a lot more diversity in EdTech conversations and decision-making. Otherwise, it is highly likely that EdTech will remain stuck in its long-standing cycle of ‘hype, hope and disappointment’.
Well you would say that, wouldn’t you?
The dominance of self-interested and partisan voices is a well-established feature of EdTech. Indeed, this is a field that was established 40 years ago by enthusiasts and hobbyists with a passion for tinkering with ‘new technology’ in classrooms. To be fair, these people tended to be teachers who could contextualise their discussions in terms of their own practice. However, it is also worth remembering that these teachers were often middle-aged white men — giving EdTech a distinct ‘pale, male and stale’ legacy that it has struggled to shake off.
Now, however, contemporary discussions about digital technology and education are increasingly driven by middle-aged white men with a direct financial (as well as personal) stake in EdTech. These are individuals who stand to directly benefit from the continued use of digital technologies in education. This includes representatives of ‘BigTech’ companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, alongside the multitude of consultants, contractors, edu-prenuers and influencers that circle around them. This also includes the growing number of educators who align themselves with wings of the EdTech industry — often under the guise of being a brand ambassador, product champion or other forms of ‘influencer’. These various groups are well-represented, for example, at huge trade events such as BETT, SXSWEdu and the like.
Regardless of how well-intentioned and good-natured they might be, I would argue that this producer capture of EdTech debate is a problem that needs to be addressed. As Murray Goulden reasons, such people have a great deal invested in ensuring the success of digital technology and, as such, their testimonies on the topic are inevitably biased and self-serving. As with all salespeople, any opinions and assertions emanating from the “EdTech community” need to treated with an appropriate degree of suspicion and scrutiny. This is not to say that such voices should not be given air-time and attention. Indeed, these people have a lot of valuable experience and expertise (after all, many are involved directly in building the actual devices, systems and applications that EdTech is founded upon). As long as they are prepared to fully ‘declare their interest’, these can still be useful people to hear from.
The need for new blood
However, if digital technology is to progress toward becoming a genuine force for good in education, there needs to be a radical reconstitution of who is involved in shaping and guiding what EdTech is. In particular, EdTech desperately requires more guiding input from those people and groups who well might be interested and/or involved in education, yet care little about the use of technology in education. In short, EdTech is an area where we need to hear much more from those who are disinterested — if not completely uninterested — in the topic.
To be clear, I am certainly not arguing along populist lines of there being ‘No Need For Experts’. On the contrary, EdTech is an area that urgently needs expert analysis — albeit from experts whose expertise lies well beyond the area of educational technology.
Indeed, the most insightful analyses of the impact of technology on education have often proved to come from those working in fields far removed from technology and/or education. For example, economists continue to be some of the best people to lead meta-analyses of the effect (or otherwise) of technology on student achievement. Similarly, philosophers are able to reflect far more expansively than most on the ethics of digital education.Most importantly, when talking about the educational benefits of digital technology, we certainly need to hear directly from experts in the specialist areas of knowledge and pedagogy that any application or system purports to address.
At the same time, EdTech also needs to be more directly shaped by the masses of ‘non-experts’ who at the moment remain largely uninterested and uninvolved in how technology unfolds in education. EdTech needs to better serve the needs and desires of the silent majority who constitute its ‘end-users’. These are people who primarily have digital technology ‘done to’ them in schools, colleges and universities, rather than those who generally get to ‘do’ digital technology for themselves. We need to hear a lot more from those teachers, students, parents and community members who do not have ‘skin in the game’, shares in the company, a career to build and/or a professional reputation to maintain.
So, what do we do now?
If taken seriously, then, these arguments raise some considerable challenges. How can research funders increase the diversity of expert analysts that investigate EdTech? How can news media increase the diversity of expert commentators that speak to EdTech issues? How can government and civil society spark genuine debate and constructive discussion amongst the various education ‘publics’ that are at the sharp end of technology implementation in education? How can greater numbers of people get involved in shaping EdTech to meet their own needs and circumstances?
There are no easy answers to these challenges, although we can point to some interesting possibilities. For example,
school districts could develop open/collective procurement policies that reframe decisions over what new technologies they purchase into a community-wide consultative process.
Research funders could explicitly prioritise the rigorous evaluation of educational technology using robust methodological designs from disciplines such as economics, cognitive psychology and social policy (for example, the conduct of randomised controlled trials). News media could maintain (and use!) lists of expert commenters who do not perpetuate a white, male, middle-aged worldview of EdTech.
In addition, some encouraging signs of EdTech dissent and controversy have emerged over the past year or so. For instance, the studentwalk-outs in opposition to the imposition of the Facebook-backed ‘Summit’ system in Brooklyn schools foregrounded a very different narrative about ‘personalised learning’ technologies than the five years of industry hype. These episodes of student activism were accompanied elsewhere by local parent-led campaigns such as ClassroomsNotComputers and Data Disruptors. All the while, online op-ed and social media has continued to provide a platform for EdTech critics such as Audrey Watters and Chris Gilliard.
As these examples show, it is certainly possible to imagine alternatives to the current hegemonic ways that EdTech is sold to us through the likes of the BETT show, EdSurge and endless ‘Top Ten Tech Tips To Transform Your Teaching’. Yet, these are ultimately shifts that need to take place on a mainstream and widespread basis. Digital technology can clearly be of immense benefit to education … but we all need to have an input into what sorts of digital education are being imagined and enacted. If the considerable time, effort and money being pumped into this area is ever going to amount to anything truly meaningful, then who gets to talk about EdTech — and what they get to talk about — needs to expand significantly.
