Audrey Watters > Quotes

“All the visions of the future of education, the future of teaching, the future of work, the future of learning are ideological. They are also political. As we hear the visions of politicians and entrepreneurs, as we listen to the visions of the rest of today’s speakers, we need to remember that. Predictions about the future are not neutral. They are not objective. They are invested—invested in a past and a present and a future. Invested in a certain worldview of what learning looks like now, what it has looked like before and what—thanks to whatever happens in the future—what it might look like going forward.”
― Audrey Watters, The Revenge of the Monsters of Education Technology

“one of Papert’s best-known lines in his manifesto: “should the computer program the kid or should the kid program the computer?”
― Audrey Watters, The Monsters of Education Technology

“For teachers . . . for human teachers, not teaching machines”
― Audrey Watters, Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning

“The personal computer isn't "personal" because it's small and portable and yours to own. It's "personal" because you pour yourself into it - your thoughts, your programming.”
― Audrey Watters, The Monsters of Education Technology

“That’s why it doesn’t matter to proponents of the “disruptive innovation” framework that Khan Academy or MOOCs suck, for example.”
― Audrey Watters, The Monsters of Education Technology

“There’s a problem with the Internet. Largely designed by men from the developed world, it is built for men of the developed world. Men of science. Men of industry. Military men. Venture capitalists. Despite all the hype and hope about revolution and access and opportunity that these new technologies will provide us, they do not negate hierarchy, history, privilege, power. They reflect those. They channel them. They concentrate them, in new ways and in old.”
― Audrey Watters, The Monsters of Education Technology