Unrelated, it's amazing how edtech startups have been beaten by traditional coaching institutions. Not only those institutions are profitable but they are beating growth numbers consistently.
If you ask techies to describe education, it consists of memorizing trivia. And that fits perfectly well into computerized education.
It doesn't help that so many school systems do in fact look at it that way. That's why we've gotten more and more standardized testing. They want to know they're getting value for money, so they define value in ways they can measure cheaply.
One of the big benefits is of computers vs books: being able to directly give automated feedback.
Pronounce or type a word wrong, the computer instantly gives you specific feedback. If you do assignments on paper teachers checks it much further away from the point the cognitive effort has been applied. There is a much less direct feedback loop.
Especially for learning how to read a computer can give feedback whereas kids can go through texts not fully understanding, or misreading words without any correction.
Of course one on one is in some ways much more effective. But there are time constraints.
To automate certain things computer programs are most time effective. Just have to check in to make sure they are taking their work seriously.
It's also harder to pretend to be studying with a computer
Computerized training only really works for older students who are already highly motivated to learn a particular skill.
And true I don't like multiple choice for that reason.
However in my experience it's much easier to check from a distance if they are messing around or not with a computer. And computer won't easily allow them to continue with wrong answers. (Certain programs are better then others)
One on one is always better, but there is not room for a lot of one one time in most schools
Kids do that when they're forced to it. Anybody would do that.
Kids who are interested in what they're learning about won't do that.
Perhaps we shouldn't expect people (kids or not) to do so much irrelevant stuff.
Also apps like tandem have made it free, quick and easy to find someone online to practice with.
Ed tech is a problem yes, because you get only 1 kind of content on a single platform. But in general, computers have given me access to so much more than a singular human interaction could.
I'll use an example (real one). "Linear Algebra" search right here on HN yields a few results and I especially liked the animated web book. Gilbert Strang's videos are well... Gilbert Strang's videos. 3blue1brown throws a fantastic perspective. Pavel Grinfeld is brilliant too.
I have so many options now, which didn't exist in 1995. And each of them is so different and great in its own way.
Yes, I agree, but I think you underestimate just how much power v2 can bring to books.
Computers make interactive media relatively easy to create. Interactivity provides a literal new dimension to the information you can convey that makes some things easier and faster to understand than if you were to read them from a book. As a student, you can be handed a live simulation and experiment with it to "grow" an intuition for the subject matter. Nicky Case's explainers are a prime example of this in action.
A teacher is able to see where a student is making a mistake, why that mistake is happening and what else might be going wrong. A computer is a supplement to that. It will never be a replacement.
In over 15 years of receiving an education, i met several great teachers and a few excellent ones.
For many (not necessarily all) ed-tech startups, they don't.
They aren't looking to improve education, they are looking to leverage and scale a business. And for that, 'computers' is ideal.