(from the National Education Policy Center) There's a potential dark side in edtech: The deepening reach of digital technologies in schools "routinely engages students in activities that facilitate the collection of valuable personal data and that socialize students to accept relentless monitoring and surveillance as normal," according to NEPC's 19th annual report on schoolhouse commercialism. "Schools and districts are paying huge sums of money to private vendors and creating systems to transfer vast amounts of children’s personal information to education technology companies,” said a survey author. “Education applications, especially applications that ‘personalize’ student learning, are powered by proprietary algorithms, without anyone monitoring how student data are being collected or used."
Among other things, the report calls for policies prohibiting schools from collecting student data "unless rigorous, easily understood safeguards for the appropriate use, protection and final disposition of those data are in place."
Read the full release at the National Education Policy Center.
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