Unfulfilled Promise: The Forty-Year Shift from Print to Digital and Why It Failed to Transform Learning
Feb 9, 2024
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This podcast explores the unfulfilled promise of the shift from print to digital in education and its challenges. It discusses the four phases of the shift, including the rise of blended learning and remote learning. It also highlights the new era of human-computer interaction with generative AI in education. The podcast examines the reasons why edtech has not successfully transformed learning and suggests recommendations for student-centered models.
The shift from print to digital in education brought about a transition from information scarcity to abundance, with social media and YouTube playing major roles, however, the transition to digital learning in American schools was gradual, uneven, and often expensive, resulting in limited improvement in traditional learning outcomes.
The evolution of EdTech over the past four decades has seen significant milestones, with advancements such as the introduction of computers, rise of virtual learning, launch of open education resources, adoption of blended learning, and the recent emergence of generative artificial intelligence, indicating a continuous strive to transform education.
Deep dives
The Shift from Print to Digital
The shift from print to digital was a significant change in how people learn. It brought a shift from information scarcity to abundance, with social media and YouTube playing major roles in education. However, the transition to digital learning in American schools was gradual, uneven, and often expensive. While there were some improvements in engagement and new learning models, overall, EdTech did not effectively boost traditional learning outcomes.
Decades of EdTech Progress
Over the past four decades, there have been significant milestones in EdTech. In the 1980s, the introduction of computers like the Apple II e-computer marked the beginning of educational computing. The 1990s saw the rise of virtual learning, the launch of open education resources, and the start of one-to-one laptop initiatives. The 2000s witnessed the rise of blended learning, the launch of YouTube and Google Apps for Education, and the adoption of Chromebooks. In the last decade, there has been an increasing focus on remote learning, the use of AR and VR in classrooms, and the rise of generative artificial intelligence in education.
Challenges and Recommendations for EdTech
Despite the advancements in EdTech, there have been several barriers to its transformational impact. These include limited capacity for change in the decentralized American education system, a time-bound system, private infrastructure owning student data, and outdated learning goals. To overcome these challenges, the paper suggests the need for new student-centered, personalized, and mastery-based models. It also emphasizes the importance of adding new learning goals that focus on creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and entrepreneurship. Additionally, the paper recommends working together in networks to build and deploy new learning models and ensuring data interoperability for portable credentials.
This episode is an overview of a recent contribution to a publication from the Hoover Institute written by Tom Vander Ark. This publication takes a look at the shift from print to digital in light of the 40th anniversary of A Nation At Risk. This era marked a shift from information scarcity to abundance, a shift from searching to sorting. It changed what, how, and where people learn, and not always for the better. In American schools, the shift to digital learning was gradual, uneven, often chaotic, expensive, and, while there was observed improvement in engagement, largely ineffective at boosting traditional outcomes.
The shift to digital learning was marked by four phases: computers in the back of the room, introduction of the World Wide Web, the rise of blended learning, and remote learning. The rise of generative AI in 2022 marks a new era of human-computer interaction.