State and federal level: privacy protection and better reputation
A complaint I heard from many public school parents who responded to my March 27 survey and wanted a low-tech environment for their children was that they were concerned about their children's privacy. They said they couldn't opt out of things like Google Classroom, and in many cases all of their children's homework was posted there. Molnar has a radical and elegant solution to this problem. “All data collected must be destroyed after its intended purpose has been achieved.” Therefore, if the intended purpose of a platform or application is, for example, grading, the data will be destroyed at the end of the school year. Become. It may not be sold to third parties, used to further enhance products, or used as a training ground for artificial intelligence.
Another recommendation outlining the risks of AI in the classroom comes from a recent paper by Ben Williamson and Molnar of the University of Edinburgh and Faith Boninger of the University of Colorado Boulder: The creation of an independent government agency responsible for “Digital education products used in schools” evaluates technology before it is introduced into schools and “on a regular basis thereafter.” Technology is constantly evolving and we need to keep an eye on it too.
District level: Centralize the technical review process
Stephanie Sheron is the director of strategic initiatives for Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland's largest school district, with all of the district's technology departments reporting to her. She likened the world of technology that has emerged from the remote learning era of the COVID-19 pandemic to the “Wild West.” School districts were flooded with all sorts of educational technology and flooded with federal relief money as teachers scrambled to reach their students. When the problem was resolved, she said, the problem was: How do we control this? How do we make sure we're aligned with FERPA and COPPA and all the other student data privacy components?”
To address this, Sheron said her district secured a grant to hire a director of information security to serve as a hub for all educational technology sales and evaluation of new technology. . As part of the school district's ongoing standardization efforts, curriculum vendors should consider the need to offer both digital and hard-copy resources. She said her district tries to look at technology as a tool, and she added: She says, “The pencil is a tool for learning, but it's not the only means. The same goes for technology. We look at it as a tool, not as the main driver of the educational experience.”
Classroom level: relentlessly evaluate all tools
In my conversations with teachers, I was struck by their descriptions of the chain of technology use. This means that more technology is often offered as a solution to problems caused by technology. For example, paid software like GoGuardian, which allows teachers to monitor all children's screens, was introduced to solve the problem of children fooling around on their laptops. But there's a simple, free, low-tech solution to this problem that Doug Shorey, an Indiana high school English teacher I spoke to, uses. He has all of his students face their computer screens in his direction.
