A painfully uncomfortable question posed by Audrey Watters last week that ed tech professionals, and students, should reflect on as 2020 begins,

[quote cite=”Audrey Watters, Hack Education” url=”https://hewn.substack.com/p/hewn-no-337″]I’m serious. Sit with that sentence a minute before you pipe up to defend your favorite app or social network or that cute robot your kids coded to move in a circle. What if there wasn’t anything good about ed-tech? What if ed-tech is totally inseparable from privatization, behavioral engineering, and surveillance? What if, by surrendering to the narrative that schools must be increasingly technological, we have neglected to support them in being be remotely human? What if we can never address the crises of our democracies, of our planet if we keep insisting on the benevolence of tech? However, the issue remains that the quality of learning resources is usually determined using the following lenses: – Accuracy – Reputation of author/institution – Standard of technical production – Accessibility – Fitness for purpose[/quote]

In related news, if you haven’t read Audrey’s end of decade review, The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade, drop everything and check it out.