History Matters
4 min read
Yesterday, I wrote this piece after reading an article on Incentivizing Education. The piece on incentivizing education attempts to define the philosophical justification and the absolute need for venture funded companies to profit from the public education system. But please, don't take my word for it. Read the piece yourself.
However, it's hard to take the argument seriously because it is riddled with blatantly obvious errors of fact. Yesterday, I limited myself to the second paragraph, largely for reasons of time, but every section contains assertions that are either demonstrably false, or conclusions drawn from these demonstrably false assertions (and yes, I do feel a little bit like this guy).
I have broken up another paragraph with some inline commentary below.
The single greatest innovation in education in our lifetime has been the opportunity created to leverage computers, tablets, and smartphones as delivery systems with myriad applications
If all we do with smartphones, computers, and tablets is "leverage" them "as delivery systems" we have failed. Education is not an exercise in consumption, and applications are not needed to enable learning. We should absolutely be using these tools, but we need to show how the hardware and the software facilitate creating, communicating, discovering, and distributing. The devices are tools that help us create different types of connections as we actively grow and experiment. Anything that emphasizes passivity over experimentation isn't about learning, it's about selling.
And selling is fine, but don't try and convince us that selling is learning.
A businessperson sees a screen and imagines an endpoint of a delivery system. An educator and a learner sees a doorway. Businesspeople, and especially funders, need to learn to think like educators and learners.
– and none of these devices were developed by schools or philanthropies. They were developed by fiercely competitive, ROI-oriented companies. Without these products, there would be no Open Education Resources.
Even the most superficial research shows that the history of computers is firmly rooted in schools, govermental organizations, philanthropies, as well as businesses.
The Atanasoff-Berry computer was designed and built at Iowa State. ENIAC was financed by the US military and built at the University of Pennsylvania. The NLS was developed with support from the US military and Stanford University (specifically, SRI).
And looking at the current day, how much hardware and software is sold to government, schools, or businesses that are doing contract or grant-funded work for the government? To insist that VC funded companies are the drivers of innovation is to ignore both history, the varied sources in which innovation arises, and the "demand" part of the supply and demand relationship.
Software and hardware have been developed in many ways, in many places. The claim that a "fiercely competitive, ROI-oriented" business is an essential piece of the equation ignores reality.
There would be no learning management systems.
This wouldn't be a bad thing. I love the idea of a world without Blackboard.
There would be no Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia.
Unless Jimmy Wales' parents were cavorting on an early iPad prototype in Cupertino, it's a stretch to say that Jimmy Wales wouldn't exist without modern technology.
But with regards to Mediawiki - the software that runs Wikipedia -it was built using open source tools, by community members, many of who were employed in educational organizations and worked on Mediawiki in their spare time.
A world of knowledge would still be limited to the elite: those pursuing doctorates at schools where former Presidents once resided.
The internet is the democratizing force. Usenet - developed within higher ed and governmental entities - supported peer to peer learning at a large scale in the 1980's. Read up on the history of ARPANET and the role of publicly funded governmental groups in creating it. Read up on ENQUIRE and then take a look at the public money behind it.
Do VC funded companies have a role to play in helping develop new technology? Of course they do, and no one is arguing otherwise. But please, don't confuse a fondness for actual facts with a blanket dislike of the profit motive. One can both like to make a profit and like to know the truth - these things aren't mutually exclusive. VC funded companies and for-profit companies have a role to play, and to pretend that there is widespread resistance to the idea of a business earning a fair profit is dishonest.
There is resistance, however, to blatant falsehoods being peddled as truth in the name of marketing and outreach. If anyone attempts to rewrite history so it better aligns with their marketing copy, they deserve to be called on it. Unfortunately, many EdTech companies create a narrative that has more to do with their business needs than actual reality.
