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From what I've seen there are three major problems with edtech that gives a personalized education: 1) A lot of K-8 education is babysitting. If you let kids d

From what I've seen there are three major problems with edtech that gives a personalized education: 1) A lot of K-8 education is babysitting. If you let kids do their own thing they'll just watch YouTube and play Roblox instead. Most kids are not _that_ self motivated at this point in life. It's hard for teachers to manage a classroom if everyone is working on different things. 2) Staring at a computer screen is not a great learning experience. A classroom is an interactive, social experience with active feedback. It's hard to socialize when the kid next to you is not working on the same activity or problems you are. 3) Personalizing education diminishes the importance of teachers in the classroom, which teachers unions obviously oppose. Teachers can't teach if every kid is learning something different, and online education strongly promotes winner-take-all dynamics where the best teacher and content can scale up infinitely and dominate. Out of all these I think 2) and 3) are the hardest problems to solve and whoever solves them is going to meaningfully advance education. But I'm not very convinced by the startups I'm seeing in this space that anyone has solved it yet.

npunt 4y ago
Yeah we’re early on in really nailing the formula. Butts in seats staring at screens doing single player activities isn’t a particularly compelling education environment nor one children are accustomed to biologically. We need more embodied, social, psychologically safe, and intrinsically motivating learning environments, and I don’t think the enabling technologies and designs have yet emerged to fully satisfy these needs. That said some of these programs have solid learning science foundations and good outcomes. Teachers roles necessarily change to ‘guide on the side’ and motivator, there’s a lot more there to go into but basically it’ll take time.

npunt 4y ago

Yeah we’re early on in really nailing the formula. Butts in seats staring at screens doing single player activities isn’t a particularly compelling education environment nor one children are accustomed to biologically. We need more embodied, social, psychologically safe, and intrinsically motivating learning environments, and I don’t think the enabling technologies and designs have yet emerged to fully satisfy these needs. That said some of these programs have solid learning science foundations and good outcomes. Teachers roles necessarily change to ‘guide on the side’ and motivator, there’s a lot more there to go into but basically it’ll take time.