CURMUDGUCATION: Ed Tech Reporters Should Make These Eight Resolutions For 2020

CURMUDGUCATION: Ed Tech Reporters Should Make These Eight Resolutions For 2020

Ed Tech Reporters Should Make These Eight Resolutions For 2020

This ran three weeks ago over at Forbes. Three weeks into 2020 it still applies.

Audrey Watters bills herself as “an education writer, an independent scholar, a serial dropout, a rabble-rouser, and ed-tech's Cassandra.” Her Hack Education blog is required reading for anyone who cares about technology in education. Since founding the blog in 2010, she has provided a meaty, thoroughly researched and well-thought-out end-of-year assessment of ed tech. This year, she looked back over the entire span with “The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles Of The Decade,” and it deserves a spot on every list of education end-of-decade lists.

There are several threads that run through the list of 100 failures, including hubris, wild over-promising, and simple ignorance of what the education field actually needs or wants from tech. But one of the biggest recurring themes is the failure of journalism to adequately cover stories. Time after time, journalists cover a new ed tech story with uncritical breathlessness. In almost none of the 100 examples can you point to early press coverage that said, “Hey, wait a minute. Here are a few reasons to think this might not really be a thing.” In just the last few months, the Washington Postpublished a glowing report of serial edupreneur Chris Whittle’s latest venture, and theNew York Times plugged Bakpax, CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: Ed Tech Reporters Should Make These Eight Resolutions For 2020