Make Shift
In his soon-to-be-released book Vaporware, Inc, political scientist David Karpf argues that Silicon Valley is no longer in the business of inventing new technologies, building new products, or engineering new “solutions.” “All tech companies,” he correctly observes, “have become, to various extents, speculative finance companies” – that’s
The People in Your Neighborhood
The House that TurnItIn Built
I gave this talk this afternoon at Concordia University, as part of the SkepTech series questioning education technology. Today's bird, which does not appear anywhere in the talk, is the house sparrow, which along with the pigeon is one of the most widely distributed wild birds, thanks in
Present Company Excepted
“Generative 'AI' is here to stay." We hear this a lot. But a reminder: this is not a statement of fact. It is an assertion, but it is merely speculation. The future is unwritten – much to the consternation of those who’d like very much to dictate
Autumn
To Dismantle Democracy, You Subvert Public Schools
For at least the past fifty years*, conservatives have made substantial efforts to dismantle public education, through a variety of policies, practices, and story-lines: budget cuts, vouchers, charter schools, anti-tax measures, anti-union initiatives, “free to choose” and “failing school” narratives. And of course, through education technology initiatives.
What Does Defiance Taste Like?
Caching Behavior
Click Here to Comply
Perhaps you’ve read Ben Riley’s exposé on AlphaSchool’s “boot camp” -- along with his follow-up in which the school provides even more creepy details on the bizarre eight-week training program that high school students enrolled in the private school must complete. Perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps
Move Slow, Remake Things
In the prologue to their book Tinkering Toward Utopia, historians David Tyack and Larry Cuban highlight the tensions in how Americans think about schooling: we have, almost since the nation’s outset, believed in the transformative power of education; and yet, despite the importance we grant to education and our
