I’m not one to usually engage in the twitter world, recently I have found it to be quite engaging and eye opening to both mine and other’s experiences. I feel when we are limited by time or type count than we have more opportunity to speak quite bluntly about how we feel rather than beat around the bush. For this reason, I decided to challenge my own tweeting skills and limit myself in word count for each point and create a twitter thread that can be found here. In this thread I summarize the Ted Talk by Khurram Virani on Data Driven Technology.
From my experience in a classroom and as a tech user, I do not entirely agree with the TED talk. I feel that yes data should not just be collected and left unused but rather should be invested into the classroom just as it is used to improve tech. I do not feel that this can be an immediate adaption to the classroom though. In my experience teaching students is not always a cut and paste experience but rather there is a lot of trial and error as Virani did say there is with technology. I feel the difference though is that in education, we do not see the effective or ineffective use of technology until a substantial amount of time has passed to see if this technology is truly something that can be effectively integrated into a classroom. By the time we establish whether an app is suitable for all teachers to implement and can be modified for various student needs, perhaps the data or tech may change by then. This is why in my personal experience I feel things need to be tried and tested long term before establishing whether they are good for both students and the classroom in the long run. Technology is ever changing and rapid irritation is not necessarily the most compelling method of change in a class. Information is considered to create a curriculum that can take years to develop. Constant change of the curriculum or teaching methods may be financially cumbersome and implementing it may be daunting to some teachers who already feel their plate is full.
Algorithms were not a huge concern for me as an educator before or in fact after this video. I do think tests and work of students should be looked at and evaluated in terms of where things are commonly going wrong, or where they are challenging for a majority of students. Once this data or information has been collected then it must be used in the classroom effectively. The only new point that I learned and had a chance to reflect on was the fact that data should be collected more often just as tech is ever improving and growing.