2 ms·

>The district selected Pearson based only on samples of curriculum — nothing more was available. So they bought hardware to run software that didn't exist.

keithpeter 12y ago
Yes, I noticed that as well. Just to play Devil's Advocate for a bit: assume 12 hours of material each week (Maths/English lessons plus some homework tasks), and a 36 week school year. I'm assuming something like ages 11 to 16, so something like 2160 hours total. That is a fair amount to author before you have a contract is it not? (As a teacher myself, I would have suggested leading into the scheme with 10% of that with good quality interactive material broken into small enough topics so the teachers could integrate it with what they use already.)
greedo 12y ago
Pearson is horrible, but the educational software field itself is just as horrible. In 2000 I worked for a small startup that created online courseware. Our roots were as a spinoff from a Federal grant to a big name university. Our task was to commercialize the courses the university had developed, and to develop additional courses. Granted that technology in 2000 was not as advanced as today, but the pedagogy behind online/computer based courses was still in its infancy. It would take us 6 months to develop a basic Biology course, using programmers, SMEs, editors, and graphic artists. We turned out what was a pretty good course all things considered. Where the real problem lay was the selling/marketing process. School districts are by nature conservative, and new ideas/technology that threaten established teaching methods are viewed with a gimlet eye. Textbook publishers had a lock on the market and didn't want to give up any ground to an intruder. Teachers were afraid of being replaced by computers, leading to widespread skepticism of distance learning. And the technological competence of teachers and administrators at the time was bad; they had too much other things to worry about than to understand the difference between Java and Javascript. So to me, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed in 15 years. The established vendors want to protect their market, the buyers, though pushed to embrace technology don't know how to use it well, and the students are left holding a bag of shit.

keithpeter 12y ago

Yes, I noticed that as well. Just to play Devil's Advocate for a bit: assume 12 hours of material each week (Maths/English lessons plus some homework tasks), and a 36 week school year. I'm assuming something like ages 11 to 16, so something like 2160 hours total. That is a fair amount to author before you have a contract is it not? (As a teacher myself, I would have suggested leading into the scheme with 10% of that with good quality interactive material broken into small enough topics so the teachers could integrate it with what they use already.)

greedo 12y ago

Pearson is horrible, but the educational software field itself is just as horrible. In 2000 I worked for a small startup that created online courseware. Our roots were as a spinoff from a Federal grant to a big name university. Our task was to commercialize the courses the university had developed, and to develop additional courses. Granted that technology in 2000 was not as advanced as today, but the pedagogy behind online/computer based courses was still in its infancy. It would take us 6 months to develop a basic Biology course, using programmers, SMEs, editors, and graphic artists. We turned out what was a pretty good course all things considered. Where the real problem lay was the selling/marketing process. School districts are by nature conservative, and new ideas/technology that threaten established teaching methods are viewed with a gimlet eye. Textbook publishers had a lock on the market and didn't want to give up any ground to an intruder. Teachers were afraid of being replaced by computers, leading to widespread skepticism of distance learning. And the technological competence of teachers and administrators at the time was bad; they had too much other things to worry about than to understand the difference between Java and Javascript. So to me, it doesn't seem like a lot has changed in 15 years. The established vendors want to protect their market, the buyers, though pushed to embrace technology don't know how to use it well, and the students are left holding a bag of shit.