Don’t Believe “Don’t Be Evil” My own concerns about the direction of education technology cannot be separated from my concerns with digital technologies more broadly. Indeed, the World Bank issued a report in January arguing that digital technologies – not just robots in factories – stand to widen inequalities as well, “and even hasten the hollowing out of middle-class employment.” Education Technology and Digital Polarization. MORE

Administrators at Dorchester School District Two in suburban Summerville, South Carolina, were well aware of the digital divide when they decided to give students both paper and online resources after shuttering schools because of coronavirus. percent of all school-age children in the fall of 2016, the last year for which such data is available. percent — the proportion of public school students who are English-language learners, according to a 2016 study. “I MORE

Humphrey testified that he hired Hubbard on a $7,500-per-month consulting contract to connect him to legislative leaders in other states, as Edgenuity tried to sell digital courses.” ” From the story: “Online education company Udacity plans to branch out of its core technology market to meet growing demand for digitally-skilled workers in areas such as banking and the car industry, its co-founder told Reuters as the company launched in Germany.” MORE

“I’m slightly wary of building a Google data profile of a young child,” says @ashleyrcarman @verge [link]. Tagged on: March 18, 2017 G Suite for Education Now Open for Personal Google Accounts, Outside Domains | Campus Technology → Raises privacy questions. The partnership aims to bridge the digital divide in Pittsburg by offering parents refurbished computers free of charge. " says Google Family Link manager Saurabh Sharma. MORE

You can read the series here: 2010 , 2011 , 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , 2016 , 2017 , 2018 , 2019. Or the company will have to start charging for the software. The implication, according to one NYT article : “the digital gap between rich and poor kids is not what we expected.” The real digital divide, this article contends, is not that affluent children have access to better and faster technologies. (Um, MORE

And speaking of copyrighting a language of a warlike people, the Oracle v Google case had its closing arguments this week. On Thursday, the judge gave Google the victory , ruling that the company’s use of the Java API fell under fair use provisions. Also off campus, not on-: “ Unemployed Detroit Residents Are Trapped by a Digital Divide.” The Common Core aligned reading software maker had raised $1.8 Education Politics. MORE

Marc Andreessen famously said that “software is eating the world,” but it’s far more accurate to say that the neoliberal values of software tycoons are eating the world. Every industry uses computers, software, and internet services. But it’s more likely that “technology” has become so overused, and so carelessly associated with Silicon Valley-style computer software and hardware startups, that the term has lost all meaning. MORE

Tagged on: March 26, 2017 Schools told compulsory 'BYO device' policies are illegal | NZ Herald → "We will be reminding all schools that boards of trustees can ask, but can't compel, families to bring their own digital devices because schools can't deny a child's access to learning if their parents can't provide them one," she said. "In Schneiderman announced that his office received a record number of data breach notices in 2016. MORE

Tagged on: March 26, 2017 Schools told compulsory 'BYO device' policies are illegal | NZ Herald → "We will be reminding all schools that boards of trustees can ask, but can't compel, families to bring their own digital devices because schools can't deny a child's access to learning if their parents can't provide them one," she said. "In Schneiderman announced that his office received a record number of data breach notices in 2016. MORE

BYOD deepens the digital divide. Even when schools provide for these students — like making them beneficiaries of a BYOD funding program, or letting them check out a device from the school’s library — the digital divide doesn’t disappear completely. Besides BYOD funding programs, and allowing kids to use school devices, more measures can be taken in order to standardize the software students use. MORE

As textbook giants shift to all-digital products that integrate homework, students are essentially forced to buy digital materials from publishers to turn in their assignments. That raises the question: is the move to digital homework systems creating a new kind of digital divide at colleges? Textbook companies defend their new model, arguing that digital titles help students learn better than past methods and are sold for far less than traditional textbooks. MORE