As a formed ed-tech evangelist with startup capital and dreams of making the world so "easy" for learning - I profess, we need a helluva lot more friction involved in teaching. Even if we have to artificially inject it. Nobody ever climbed Everest without first going up a lot of smaller hills, day after day after day. As Kundera in "Slowness" relates - speed is about forgetting and slowness about memory. The first is necessary at times but the later is crucial to intelligence and learning - for experience itself is of necessity but the slow recall of the past.
Katie, nicely done. Two thoughts. Of course you are right, but I have a sense of King Canute with his feet wet. Second, if anything, I think the metaphor of "friction" gives too much away, because it leaves the underlying imaginary in place, that is, education as a transport, or transaction, to be accomplished as "smoothly" and efficiently as possible. Contrast Bildung, which is about the student, as you know. Or, for another metaphor, track athletes run in circles. The weights return to the rack, or their position on the machine. No "work" in the mechanical sense is done (Work = Force x Displacement). Instead, the work is done on the athlete. I almost never care about a students interpretation or argument as such, except to indicate whether the student is becoming better. Anyway, keep up the good work.
I see the metaphor being education offering friction to other systems (for instance, surveillance capitalism), not the educational system itself being smooth transport-- since I and others have suggested friction is the point of education itself. And I resist the King Canute metaphor, since the story suggests the king trying to avoid a natural phenomenon--which makes the "tide" tech, and that's a bit too technodeterministic for my taste :)
I agree that education (or at least educated people)might provided much needed friction vis-a-vis surveillance, capitalism. But it doesn't seem to be working! Yeah, Canute is too natural, which I suppose leads to technodeterminist, too much for my taste too, which is the problem. No good social image sprang to mind, though.
I get what you're saying about friction, and agree, but I still think it gives too much away to your opponents, because it leaves the imagination of education as one of motion, and so one should somehow go, or deliver, as far/fast/efficiently as possible. Like an industrial process, output driven. (Assessments!). Or Turing, and hence much discussion of AGI. More anon.
I like the way that you and the writers you mention are taking aim at the word frictionless. The vision for most internet technology of the past decade is to make it very easy to give up your money or your data through a "frictionless user experience." I hope repeatedly pointing out that this vision does not translate to education because education requires friction has some effect.
You invited us to boost our favorite critics, so let me promote Mathworlds by Dan Meyer, a trenchant critic of the view that personalized learning via chatbots like Khanmigo will magically meet the actual needs of teachers or students.
Your point about the importance of the longer history of edtech gets my very biased endorsement. Teaching Machines is great. Anyone into podcasts should check out Watters on the EdSurge Podcast from when she was promoting the book in 2021.
Two other suggestions: The first chapter of Todd Oppenheimer's "The Flickering Mind" is an excellent historical overview of the twentieth century dream that television and radio would usher in techotopia. I also recommend "Tinkering Toward Utopia," David Tyack and Larry Cuban's short book about the history of educational reform. They are particularly good at explaining why the basic structures of schooling have persisted despite the efforts of reformers including technology entrepreneurs looking to "disrupt" schooling.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how friction is an essential aspect of how we find meaning. This happens very plainly in education, but I'd argue that it happens in the spaces of therapy, spiritual practice, interpersonal relationships, and writing, too. "Frictionlessness" isn't the idol that tech company marketing departments make it out to be.
There's so much to explore within the realm of how AI tools influence essential interpersonal dynamics. I'm really enjoying hearing from educators about how backwards the promises made by the marketing hype feel; thank you for this piece and all the recommendations.
Oh! And regarding the hand-waving of the vast and complex field of GenAI... I recently learned the term "scalesplaining" from a Cory Doctorow piece, and quite liked it to describe this particular flavor of being told to not worry about understanding something. (Link: https://pluralistic.net/tag/scalesplaining/)
As a formed ed-tech evangelist with startup capital and dreams of making the world so "easy" for learning - I profess, we need a helluva lot more friction involved in teaching. Even if we have to artificially inject it. Nobody ever climbed Everest without first going up a lot of smaller hills, day after day after day. As Kundera in "Slowness" relates - speed is about forgetting and slowness about memory. The first is necessary at times but the later is crucial to intelligence and learning - for experience itself is of necessity but the slow recall of the past.
Katie, nicely done. Two thoughts. Of course you are right, but I have a sense of King Canute with his feet wet. Second, if anything, I think the metaphor of "friction" gives too much away, because it leaves the underlying imaginary in place, that is, education as a transport, or transaction, to be accomplished as "smoothly" and efficiently as possible. Contrast Bildung, which is about the student, as you know. Or, for another metaphor, track athletes run in circles. The weights return to the rack, or their position on the machine. No "work" in the mechanical sense is done (Work = Force x Displacement). Instead, the work is done on the athlete. I almost never care about a students interpretation or argument as such, except to indicate whether the student is becoming better. Anyway, keep up the good work.
I see the metaphor being education offering friction to other systems (for instance, surveillance capitalism), not the educational system itself being smooth transport-- since I and others have suggested friction is the point of education itself. And I resist the King Canute metaphor, since the story suggests the king trying to avoid a natural phenomenon--which makes the "tide" tech, and that's a bit too technodeterministic for my taste :)
I agree that education (or at least educated people)might provided much needed friction vis-a-vis surveillance, capitalism. But it doesn't seem to be working! Yeah, Canute is too natural, which I suppose leads to technodeterminist, too much for my taste too, which is the problem. No good social image sprang to mind, though.
I get what you're saying about friction, and agree, but I still think it gives too much away to your opponents, because it leaves the imagination of education as one of motion, and so one should somehow go, or deliver, as far/fast/efficiently as possible. Like an industrial process, output driven. (Assessments!). Or Turing, and hence much discussion of AGI. More anon.
I like the way that you and the writers you mention are taking aim at the word frictionless. The vision for most internet technology of the past decade is to make it very easy to give up your money or your data through a "frictionless user experience." I hope repeatedly pointing out that this vision does not translate to education because education requires friction has some effect.
You invited us to boost our favorite critics, so let me promote Mathworlds by Dan Meyer, a trenchant critic of the view that personalized learning via chatbots like Khanmigo will magically meet the actual needs of teachers or students.
Your point about the importance of the longer history of edtech gets my very biased endorsement. Teaching Machines is great. Anyone into podcasts should check out Watters on the EdSurge Podcast from when she was promoting the book in 2021.
Two other suggestions: The first chapter of Todd Oppenheimer's "The Flickering Mind" is an excellent historical overview of the twentieth century dream that television and radio would usher in techotopia. I also recommend "Tinkering Toward Utopia," David Tyack and Larry Cuban's short book about the history of educational reform. They are particularly good at explaining why the basic structures of schooling have persisted despite the efforts of reformers including technology entrepreneurs looking to "disrupt" schooling.
Thanks for these great references. Agreed and particularly like Dan Meyer's recent "Generative AI is Best at Something Teachers Need Least" https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/generative-ai-is-best-at-something
Fantastic insights. Glad to have found this newsletter and count me on board in continuing to critically consider this tech.
Evi Wusk has joined the chorus: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-06-17-ai-might-save-teachers-time-but-what-is-the-cost
I "miss" Audrey Watters https://audreywatters.com/2022/06/15/goodbye-and-good-riddance
WHERE is she when we really NEED HER?
Added to hallucinations and bias are "stochastic parrots" and "slop": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_parrot and https://x.com/DrThomasHo/status/1803225669436154302?t=V4pCi_3fGdD9BQ5rsUTk-A&s=19
I have recently "discovered" Dan Meyer and John Warner: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drthomasho_ai-aiinedu-aiineducation-activity-7206753649140670464-VJLx?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
I've been thinking a lot lately about how friction is an essential aspect of how we find meaning. This happens very plainly in education, but I'd argue that it happens in the spaces of therapy, spiritual practice, interpersonal relationships, and writing, too. "Frictionlessness" isn't the idol that tech company marketing departments make it out to be.
I'm still finding my voice as a fairly new (to publishing) writer, but here's my most recent take on why reducing friction (in therapy) is counterproductive: https://open.substack.com/pub/mockingbirdcc/p/what-makes-ai-therapy-so-disquieting
There's so much to explore within the realm of how AI tools influence essential interpersonal dynamics. I'm really enjoying hearing from educators about how backwards the promises made by the marketing hype feel; thank you for this piece and all the recommendations.
Oh! And regarding the hand-waving of the vast and complex field of GenAI... I recently learned the term "scalesplaining" from a Cory Doctorow piece, and quite liked it to describe this particular flavor of being told to not worry about understanding something. (Link: https://pluralistic.net/tag/scalesplaining/)