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Technology has NOT Over-Promised Anything

I get so many daily emails with tech digests that I hardly ever go through them all. But today, my last day of work before Spring Break, I had a little extra time on my hands so I thought I'd read through all my "junk" email. And hidden at the bottom of one of my emails was this gem of a quote:

We have mistakenly believed that giving teachers and students new software or a new box will help fix education, but the technology has over-promised and under delivered. – Larry Ferlazzo

I would like to politely disagree. I don't think technology has ever promised to do anything. It's just a tool. People may have promised that these tools will revolutionize education, but people tend to make a lot of promises that aren't filled.

People are the only fix to the problems in education. People who are willing to have tough conversations about the sad state of affairs many (but not all!) of our classrooms are in today. People who are willing to acknowledge that we are teaching to a new generation of students that live in a world we don't quite understand. People who are willing to embrace change as the only constant, and adapt to its ever growing demands. People who love children, and learning, and education.

Technology never promised to do these things. It can't. But it can be a great tool to help the people that are putting in the work to make education great.

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