Never Send a Human to Do a Machine's Job: Correcting the Top 5 EdTech Mistakes by Yong Zhao

by Yong Zhao

Do what you do best and let technology do the rest Technology has transformed our lives. Virtually every school and classroom is connected. Why then, has it not transformed education? Consider these five ways educators can begin to optimize classroom technology and rethink its use.See technology as a complement rather than a replacement Embrace its creation potential over consumption function Encourage design and personalized learning over standards and outcomes Celebrate the journey toward digital competence over curriculum improvement Focus on tech-pedagogy over product usage Learn how to let technology cultivate student autonomy, creativity, and responsibility while focusing on lessons that hone higher-order and critical thinking skills. Dr. Zhao continues to push educators' thinking by taking a serious examination of the role technology has played in education. The struggles he lays out are challenges educators try to overcome on an almost daily bases. The new thinking in this book needs to be read by those in the classroom and leaders alike. Steven W. Anderson, Author Content How to Avoid Information Overload, @web20classroom This book masterfully address the issues related to technology integration in schools. Dr. Zhao artfully navigates through the misconception of technology as the ultimate solution to the challenges of teaching. Jared Covili, Author of Going Google and Classroom in the Cloud

Genres: Education, Technology

Paperback

First published July 21, 2015

About the author

Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education, with a courtesy appointment in the School of Business, at the University of Kansas. He is also a global chair in education at East China Normal University. He previously served as the presidential chair and director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology and executive director of the Confucius Institute as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. His works focus on the implications of globalization and technology on education. He has published over 100 articles and 30 books.

Reviews

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yong Zhao, Gaoming Zhang, Jiung Lei, and Wei Qiu set out to identify common reasons implementing technology in education has historically failed to transform education. Utilizing their expertise as leaders in educational technology, instructional design, and professors of education at four universities, the authors identified the five most common errors that have historically prevented new technology from effective use in the classroom. Each of the first five chapters reflects on one of the mistakes in educational technology and offers suggestions enabling the reader to avoid the error. While the first chapters reflect on the mistakes of the past, the final chapter looks to the future and provides recommendations for reimagining education to incorporate technology.

The authors introduce the book by stating "Cyclic amnesia best characterizes the history of technology in education"(Zhao, Zhang, Lei, & Qiu, 2016). The authors back up their claim by detailing the historical attempts to integrate technology in education and how those attempts have failed to revolutionize education. I liked how the book covered each mistake in its own chapter.
However, I did think the human element was not adequately represented in all the chapters. For example, the first chapter covers the mistake of thinking of technology as a replacement for human teaching instead of as a complement. The authors explain nicely how technology can and should be used in the classroom setting, such as when used to find a creative way to help students memorize facts or memorize a method of completing a task. However, when they talk about the human teacher role, they start by saying the teacher is invaluable for teaching critical thinking, but instead of talking about how teachers can teach the concept, they launch into a discussion of how teachers need to select the appropriate technology for use in the classroom. While the book did provide some websites that review educational technology, I felt it failed to explain how teachers can use technology to teach the concept.

The authors often make suggestions for changing the thinking of how technology is used in the classroom, but leave it entirely up to the teachers to figure out how the technology can fit in their own lessons. For teachers reading this book looking for sample lesson plans or explanations for alternate ways to teach a concept, this is not that book. If the reader is looking to learn about the theoretical ideology behind the common mistakes of implementing technology in the past and how to change the thinking behind those mistakes, they came to the right place. While the authors do not come up with new ideas (these mistakes have been covered before), they are presented in an easy to read format, with concise chapters. Some of the ideas presented seem almost outdated for example, the idea presented in chapter two of using technology to allow students to create their own artifacts by vlogging, blogging, using maker spaces, etc. are already being implemented as normal pedagogy.

Overall, even though I have read about the thinking behind the mistakes and changing that thinking to reflect a pedagogical approach that includes technology as an effective teaching addition, I did like the additional resources mentioned in the book. The final chapter nicely outlines the current curriculum and then projects where the proper use of technology in the classroom can change the current educational environment.

[Temple · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I was hoping for a framework within which I could evaluate the tech in my classroom and also advice on limiting tech given recent research on its ineffectiveness in schools. Instead it gave a broad overview of different types of tech and the importance of a constructivist mindset in learning. It was reminiscent of many of the texts I read in my Master's in Ed Tech program. Not much new info for me.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise presentation of the missteps plaguing educational use of technology, along with straightforward recommendations for leveraging technology - and humans - appropriately in our learning systems.