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About being wrong about the edtech we could of had – a work in progress. Last update 17 Jan 2023

Its AI’s turn to transform schooling, university, our lives.

25 years (give or take a few years) ago, I once thought that, with computers, (and then 10 years ago) with cell phones, I also thought we’d design a better future for education, with technology. Will we get it right the third time, with AI?

Here in South Africa. Post Apartheid. I had taught as a freshly qualified teacher, done a masters in computer assisted education, returned from a year in the UK, on a journey of educational change. I’d grown up with the published textbooks, blackboards, film, cassettes, overhead projectors and then TV and video. As we entered the 21st century, I envisaged an assortment of futures. Big, epochal changes in South Africa echoed other international changes. I assumed that, as a country, we’d follow the trajectory followed in the global north. The small changes that I imagined in class, would follow, once all teachers were equipped with information and communications technology (ICT) and sufficiently capable.

Computer labs, CD-ROMs, the World Wide Web, Web 2.0, laptops, data projectors, portals, the LMS, ebooks, tablets, mobile phones, apps etc etc. Shiny, new toys. I failed to unpack my assumptions, vendors agenda’s, the slow speeds. I assumed that the digital infrastructures, necessary for teaching with technology, would eventually be provided by the state. The digital divide would be bridged. Technology would eventually become embedded in education.

My positivist visions of an educational technology (edtech) was bolstered by the growth of e-commerce, mobile services, Wired Magazine and Schoolnet. I thought that educators and education academics should be configuring these technologies, to their educational end. And because it was the internet. We had implicit permission to do so. Unlike (backwards) commercial publishing. We were free of these constraints.

I got to be an educational designer. Before “platformatization” took off . This meant that I could design a pretty front end site and code (it was rudimentary ASP), the backend to speak to a database. Because I was working for a school of education, I had the opportunity to co-design and participatively engineer small solutions for education lecturers and students. I had the challenge of working within the messy realities of an un-digitized campus. Shift forwards. To 2015. When loadshedding started to make it difficult to rely on computers. Or to 20220. When higher education has no alternative to rely on ICTE.

Under Apartheid, the educational status quo was bleak, for the majority of South Africans. School funding unashamedly benefitted privileged white children (and teachers like me). Post Apartheid, as a practitioner, post graduate, and optimist, looking for a panacea for a large problem, I naively thought that ICT offered a new narrative for education. With a bit of professional development, ed tech could become a vehicle to transform all teacher’s education practices (ICTE). Post ERT, a sense of isolation, disengagement and displacement has resulted from private companies central position in the eco system

It seems that I was wrong. It took me a long time to see who and what was driving change in education. Yes, my white privilege and racial hierarchies offered me blinkers. Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategies (GEAR) meant that market discourse entered HE policies (Gachago, D. et al 2023) As a consultant, I created a possible alliance between new managerialism and the knowledge society. Unbundling also allowed me to insert myself into these conversations. The consumerist portrayal of technology as beneficial boosted my influence. But the markets are also a double edged sword. And with students protests in 2015, HEI turned to the markets, and not edtechies, for connectivity. Insidious governance issues and deeper inequalities were obscured (Clark, D 2022).

Macgilchrsit (2022) highlights the tension between design’s intent to offer an alternative future and the tendency of design practices to have “colonizing and defuturing effects” Escobar argues that most design usually serves capitalist ends. Design practices need to be re-figured, if they are to create a more just social order.

This remains uncomfortable and difficult territory for me. It also remains under theorized, for the global south. What is counted as innovative ICTE might have disrupted education provision among the middle classes over the past 20 years. Transformation of education in South Africa was (and still is) a pressing and vexing challenge. While mobiles have offered ICT hardware and ubiquitous access to the internet, the human and physical infrastructures of this counties education bureaucracies have remain rooted in a colonialist status quo. Traditionally white (model C) schools are oversubscribed. Despite curricular changes, South Africa schools still keep and maintain colonial ethos, an elite culture and teacher centered classroom. Not enough has been done to transform the practices, cultures and deficit thinking associated with traditional conceptions of knowledge, for the majority of South African school children. And ICTE has not helped at scale.

I don’t enjoy openly re-remembering some of the dumb things that I said about technology and its place in education. These are distant memories I’d like to forget. But, instead of beating up about my blindspots and crystal-ball failure. I thought I’d try to share two narratives, that I see being followed from today. To tell two stories for the price of one – about the edtech led transformations we might still have.

On the left is the “AI generated story“. I’m using Mike Sharples’ AI story generator. On the right, is a “Story told by me” – my own tale of change. The left offers a “hopeful future”, the right does very little to redress the tendency towards more negative, pessimistic, or apocalyptic stories (Houlden & Veletsianos, 2022).

AI Generated Story		Story Told by Me
I remember my dad telling me stories about how he’d grown up without access to technology, and how amazing it was to see an entire classroom of students suddenly able to learn with the power of the internet. But in my naivety, I thought he was exaggerating. I was wrong. Now, as I sit in my classroom, surrounded by a wall of screens, I realize how wrong I was. The world has changed so much in a single generation. The students in my class have access to all the world’s knowledge at their fingertips. I can’t help but feel a little bit of awe at the sheer power of this technology. My students are living in a world I couldn’t even dream of when I was their age. They can access video lectures from any college or university, interact with people from all parts of the world, and even create their own projects. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that technology could be so incredible, but I can’t. All I can do is keep teaching, keep learning, and keep embracing this new world we live in. I was wrong, but I’m thankful that I was.		I remember hearing about Marc Prensky’s compelling explanation as to why things had changed for students in the last decades of the 20th century. His metaphor – Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants was a powerful story that permitted a simple, understandable (but wrong) idea that pervaded many ICT educators thinking. The stories he told about American teens and their technology use, permitted me to believe that South African students were also thinking and processing information fundamentally differently, than adults, because of the web and networks. I explained to this teachers, (the so-called “digital immigrants”) that their lack of digital knowledge and skills was impediment their student’s (the “digital natives”) learning. The solution was for teachers, to become digital natives. I sprouted this story and jargon (that I now regularly disdain) to anyone who cared to listen. It seemed to hold explanatory power. I only stopped flinging these terms about as I started to notice the critics, thanks to Mark Bullen’s Net Gen Skeptic blog posts and research, I now sanctimoniously dismiss these terms. But also inwardly cringe. When I remember myself. Describing, confidently to others, what I sincerely saw as the emerging students of tomorrow and the literacies and skills that teachers will need to educate them.

I look back through my blog. I see many words and presentations and me, a well meaning, but contrived noob. Dare glance forwards, I fear more words, presentations with a bit more “wokeness” sprinkled in. What lies ahead for education and ICT? For me?

AI Generated Story		Story Told by Me
The future holds a world of unknowns, a reality beyond my dreams. No longer will I be held back by the shackles of my past. I’m ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow. The future holds a world of opportunity. I will be able to break out of my comfort zone, explore new ideas, and create change. I will reach for my goals and strive to become the best version of myself. The future holds a world of possibilities. I will surround myself with people who encourage and support me, who challenge me to think differently and push me to reach my full potential. I will be open to learning new things and discovering new passions. The future holds a world of adventure. I will travel to places I have never been and see sights I have never seen. I will explore new cultures and make meaningful connections with people from all walks of life. The future holds a world of joy. I will find happiness in the small moments, savor the beauty of life, and appreciate all that I have. I will embrace the present and live each day to the fullest. The future holds a world of possibility. I will be brave, I will be bold,		Digital native or immigrants, mobiles permitting continents to leapfrog forward. Powerful stories that hide an ideology. This is not the time for navel gazing and neo – liberal shaming. You are not to blame for the GAFAM Empire, its information infrastructure and control of knowledge. The current domination of the services we all use, and the monetization of that domination, has introduced an expanding range of market possibilities for education. There’s little chance that the tomorrow’s school system can be known today. You’ve got it wrong before. You’ll probably do it again. Probably, its more important to listen and stand with those teacher’s who find themselves at the bottom of the pile. To listen, jointly enact a set of values and principles, (even if they have very little chance of being realized), is better than caving in to corporate ed tech transformational dreams. Have hope. Public education can be a vehicle to transform lives in the 21st century. But be skeptical about the hype. The status quo has enormous power and many are talking transformation, when remaining tethered, stayed or stuck in colonial thinking. I have seen how schools of education or national governments have developed curriculum and courses to “upgrade teachers”. But their influence was limited to a certain locale. I thought that learning technologies could increase access and develop digital capacity. Transform teacher skills. Go beyond what the normal university prospectus could offer. But without structural change among the global majority – the network effects will benefit the powerful and transformation effects only affect the few.

Early on in my career, I had pinned my future hopes on the web for learning. I thought I recognized a trend – that the web could offer freedom, openness and access. With the internet and mobiles, I saw a greater opportunity for schools and HE to spread their influence, to expand academic’s and teaches reach. Perhaps even challenge apartheid’s education status quo. I failed to see what was happening behind the scenes. Where capitalism was blindly legitimizing Ed Tech (in capital letters). Where tech empires were centralizing control.

AI Generated Story		Story Told by Me
I was naïve. Now, years into my career, I see the darker side of the internet. The scams, the misinformation, the bullying. I worry that the internet is making us dumber, not smarter. I am grateful for the few decent online learning platforms that have emerged, but I know that they are the exception, not the norm.		Unpacking failed visions or unrealized dreams isn’t easy. Especially when you bump into a range of edu-entrepreneurs, who are in real time still punting what you ditched years ago. Except they are now hyping up AI, instead of CD-Roms or the WWW. Or still convincing groups about cell phones and the media literacy implications for teachers. Somehow the territory seems familiar Where I saw public good, AI was the techno-solution. Where I pictured equitable access, AI sees unfettered access to data as the key. I saw teaching practice transformation. They see “synthetic text” (Bender, E.M) contributing to teacher efficiency. As someone who helped elevate and legitimize educational use technology, a narrative that believed in tech led change. I hold some responsibility. Now, as I perch among the precariat. Watching institution’s internal teaching and technology skills being decimated. And consultants offering to re-develop internal competency. Or OPMs offering to replace core internal capacity and then pass the costs to students. I too have to wonder when and to what extent I am one of the many digital natives, exploited by the extractive and established economic practices of colonial empires, missionaries and immigrants, at least for a while, bringing their “progress” to my world. Sometimes the line between their future and mine seems very fine.

There, I’ve shared my computer, mobile AI and my foibles with the world. Two recent stories about these recursive delusion. You get my point. Admitting to be wrong about the future of education technology is galling And realizing, that I’ll probably be wrong, repeatedly. Maybe, I’ll be right about that!

References

Clark, D. (2023). The construction of legitimacy: a critical discourse analysis of the rhetoric of educational technology in post-pandemic higher education, Learning, Media and Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2022.2163500

Gachago, D., Huang, C., Czerniewicz, L. & Deacon, A. (2023) A commodity to be exploited and exhausted: expressions of alienation in higher education. Sociomaterialism; educational technology; algorithms; data literacies; higher education & mental health. Volume 14.4. https://www.digitalcultureandeducation.com/volume-14-4

Macgilchrist, F., Allert, H., Cerratto Pargman, T. et al. (2023) Designing Postdigital Futures: Which Designs? Whose Futures?. Postdigit Sci Educ . https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00389-y

Sharples, M. AI story generator.