Questioning the Folklore of EdTech: Lessons from Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the iconic entrepreneur, innovator, and co-founder of Apple Inc., the company that revolutionised the technology industry, once challenged the inertia of outdated business practices by persistently asking, “Why do we do this?” That same spirit of inquiry is desperately needed in education today, where uncritical adoption of EdTech often mirrors the inefficiencies Jobs battled at Apple—solutions implemented for tradition or trend rather than purpose or evidence.

Credit image: Newsweek

'Nobody thinks about things very deeply in business,'

Jobs lamented, and the same can be said for the way education systems and especially education policymakers approach EdTech integration today. Too often, there is a rush to implement the latest education technologies—and now 'AI' of questionable degrees and qualities—without truly understanding their purpose; evaluating their standards, quality, and value.

Just as Jobs challenged the 'antiquated concepts' underlying Apple's accounting practices in its early years, school leaders and teachers must be willing to question accepted norms around technology integration.

In an interview of Jobs 30 years ago, he recounts his experience digging into the 'standard cost' accounting methods at Apple in the early days.

'The reason you do it is because you don't really have good enough controls to know how much it costs,'

he explained. 'So you guess, and then you fix your guess at the end of the quarter.' This lack of clarity why things 'are the way they are' is eerily similar to the way many schools approach EdTech (and AI) adoption, which is often a policy and market push around being 'progressive' and 'up to speed' and because 'the future is digital' and therefore...

And when schools, at the end of a term or year have to guess how things turned out with the adoption of technologies, they enter into a space where they have to fix the guess by pushing further tech or pushing the use of tech by adopting more surveillance (data collection) to justify the investment and the 'benefit' of the tech. For example, if a teacher hasn't used enough the expensive iReady system, she is now asked by her district to make sure it is used becuase lack of data on the teacher's use makes it hard for the district to show that the investment made sense. The teacher then pushes her pupils to use iReady because she needs to show the system is used. None of which of course has anything to do with whether this is desirable or helpful for either teaching, learning, or meaningful experience in the classroom. This spiral intensifies to the point that now it's about adopting AI, whatever that means, and then the next tech that comes along.

But one fundamental question is never asked.

'Why do we do this?'

as Jobs would persistently inquire, seeking to uncover the real rationale behind common business practice.

Credit image: Trio

This type of critical thinking is sorely needed when it comes to EdTech integration in schools. As Jobs recognised, 'if you're willing to sort of ask a lot of questions and think about things and work really hard', then perhaps things would have more meaning; allow more time to make meaningful choices. By deeply examining the 'why' behind EdTech decisions, schools can avoid the pitfalls of a growing 'folklorish' approach.

Ultimately, the unnecessary costs and wasted resources that result from uncritical EdTech adoption mirror the issues Jobs identified in Apple's accounting practices.

'The reason you don't know how much it costs is because your information systems aren't good enough,' he observed. Similarly, schools that fail to rigorously evaluate their technology and strengthen their information systems, which in this case are made of the teachers and the students, and hear from them 'why do we do this?', any investments are likely to see poor returns.

What’s worse is that it becomes even harder to be brutally honest about unwise investments. Instead, the tendency is to pile on additional complexities to cover up earlier mistakes. Over time, this approach takes a toll, and children’s education begins to suffer. Oversold and underused, Larry Cuban had summed these problems up in a book written 23 years ago, and over the years, until today, the same issue of lack of evidence of substantial EdTech expenditure stands (see also here).

To break free of this cycle, school leaders must heed Jobs' advice albeit dated, and challenge the status quo, and any policy rush or market pressure. Only by developing a clear understanding of the problems they're trying to solve, and rigorously evaluating potential solutions, can schools make informed choices that truly benefit teaching and learning. It's time to move beyond an EdTech and AI folklore and embrace a more thoughtful, purposeful approach.

As a takeaway, here are a few practical questions to think with:

• What’s driving your decision to use this product?

• What real problem is this EdTech/AI tool solving—and is it worth solving it this way?

• What’s the alternative? And if there isn’t one, why not?

• What existing solutions are you keeping alive that still demand resources?

• Who benefits from this tool and how does this compare against the cons?

• What’s the cost if this tool doesn’t replace your current practice?

• What’s the cost if this tool is suddenly removed after becoming ‘the current practice'?

• Who’s selling this to you, who owns it, and how could their company’s interests or failures affect your reliance on them and investment?

• Are these products undergoing any external validation and guarantees?