EdTech
German govt rules that MS365 is incompatible with GDPR
After two years of negotiations with Microsoft, the joint committee of the German federal data protection authority and 17 state regulators (DSK) published a devastating statement that essentially says that organizations currently cannot use MS365 in a lawful way under the GDPR.
“Pedagogy Before Technology” Is a Thought-Terminating Cliché – Little EdTech, Big Mouth (via @katiedigc@aus.social)
“Pedagogy before technology” comes from a good place, but it lacks nuance and it also lacks faith in our colleagues to be able to have complicated conversations. It’s not “pedagogy before technology.” It’s “technological considerations need to be made alongside pedagogical ones because ultimately the learner experience cannot extricate one from another,” but then I’ve never found myself accused of constructing my own thought-terminating clichés.
Schools must resist big EdTech – but it won’t be easy (via @margreta@mastodon.oeru.org)
"Schools are slowly becoming extremely reliant on a few large companies’ entire technological stacks in order to operate. In turn, these stacks are reshaping what schooling is and could be, and exercising unaccountable control over students, teachers, administrators and content providers alike"
Supercharger Ventures EdTech accelerator applications now open
SuperCharger applications are open for the Spring 2023 cycle (started in late March) and deadline to apply is 10 December 2022. The goal is to accelerate your growth and help you expand internationally over the course of the program. They invest up to $270,000 per startup joining their accelerator program.
As more biometric data is collected in schools, parents need to ask these 10 questions
Imagine scanning your fingerprint just to go to the loo at #school 🧐
☝️ A high school in #Sydney implemented this to find #students vandalising toilets.
🏫 This shows how easily #biometric #technology can be introduced at #schools – should #parents be concerned?
Higher Education Futures: 8 scenarios, 8 tarot cards and 8 short stories | Digital Education (via @mseangallagher@fosstodon.org)
We present eight new speculative scenarios for the future of higher education teaching:
Extinction-era universities
AI academy
The universal university
Extreme unbundling
Justice-driven innovation
Return to the ivory tower
The university of ennui
Enhanced enhancement
#255 - Evidence in EdTech — The Edtech Podcast
For this episode we examine the presence of EdTech in schools, looking at how we judge whether the tech ‘works’ or not. We explore what makes for good evidence, why contextual use is significant, and how school CPD, infrastructure development, and staff capacity building are vital to making the most of the tools at our disposal.
"If you prepare and train teachers, EdTech deployment will almost always go well. If you don't, it will almost always be a disaster" (24 min into podcast)
Drivers for EdTech Market Valuation Changes - PhilOnEdTech (via @BenPatrickWill@mastodon.social)
Market valuations of #EdTech firms are tumbling after the investment frenzy of the pandemic, with the emphasis shifting from "growth at all costs" to profitability
"There was a lot of investment activity in the past 2-3 years from people outside of education, driven by naive assumptions on just how quickly and how simply education would change in the long-term"
Edtech’s brightest are struggling to pass | TechCrunch (via @BenPatrickWill@mastodon.social)
Venture capital helped take #EdTech to "an entirely different stratosphere in 2020 and 2021, as the demand for remote learning skyrocketed. As demand grew, so did investor appetite".
But this massive boost in EdTech investment "forced an overspending and overhiring spree that now requires a correction", and VC-backed EdTech firms are cutting back hard.
