Personalisation vs Atomisation

I love music. I am grateful for Apple Music's, "for you" feature. Spookily perhaps, my iPhone "gets to know me". They take the songs I play most frequently and recommend a curated playlist, just "for me". Most of the time, it works pretty well. Not weird, just helpful. It gives me the songs I enjoy.

What, if anything, am I losing from this personalized service? When I was 18, I borrowed CDs from friends and listened to the whole thing while lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, gripped by teenage angst. I remember talking to people about music and getting recommendations from them, stumbling across songs and bands as I listened to the radio. I'd browse record stores and find sleeve artwork that appealed. Since the whole "for me" happened, I don't do it so much. Maybe it's just me or maybe it's because of how tech companies use our information and curate reality for us. 

It's all so easy with these devices! But what are we losing from so much personalization? And are we right to encourage it in school? Balance is important, and it concerns me that in the current drive to "personalize" content, we are minimizing the importance of learning from and with others about things that other people have found relevant and important over the years.

The ITSE standards are glaring examples of the drive towards personalization and a digital future. Knowledge is something we find and curate for ourselves using technology; it is not something that is done "to us" by a teacher. Embedded throughout is the techno-utopia idea that connectedness leads to a broadening rather than a narrowing of our perspective. 

Connectivity as liberation is a reasonable, intuitive hypothesis. The Internet provides access to experts, explains every concept,  informs us of science and culture. Tech has brought about a radical democratization of knowledge. And yet, the questions remain, what to believe, and what not to believe? How to judge? What tools do we have to improve our discernment? Giving the cognitive tools to work within this world of information is the role of education. To hand over the "what" of teaching to the Internet is a dereliction of our responsibility as educators. 

There is a massive elephant in the room when it comes to the logic of many tech integrationists. The evaluation of sources, the identification of truth from lies is not a "strategy" you can teach but the entire purpose of education itself. Reading something on the Internet, putting it into a folder, even putting it onto a PP and presenting it to others, in no way means you have learned it. Within the logic of the argument, is that each child's "learning" will be different. How, therefore, can the teacher, hope to ensure that learning has occurred or control the quality? In the absence of a specified curriculum, the teacher accepts forms of knowledge but not the substance, the fancy PP, or the beautiful website the kid-created are evaluated in lieu of understanding and detail in the long term. 

The antidote to this is teaching itself. We are in danger of unleashing children into a world of information without doing them the service of ensuring they have the knowledge they need to understand it. A classroom setting, a place where children can discuss ideas, ask questions, clarify misconceptions, and hear from an expert is the best antidote to the atomization of internet echo-chambers and manipulation. The "Personalization" of learning isolates students from the shared world of concepts, thought, and language, plunging them into a system that reflects their prejudices and ignorance.

Consider the rise of extremism. The cancer of groupthink happens when people don't get enough exposure to the exact opposite of what they think. To the extremist, the outraged reaction to their views is further evidence that those views must be correct. "Normal" people haven't woken up or taken the "red-pill" revealing the "troof" - we're all, in fact, victims of some capitalist/communist/white/male/feminist/transactivist/communist/muslim conspiracy (delete according to your predilection). This applies equally for the "woke" left and the "red-pillers" of the alt-right. Your disagreement is merely further evidence that they are right. 

What has this to do with ITSE standards? Well, a dalliance with some Youtube video as part of a kid "managing their own learning" is quite likely. Next up,  express your opinion in "creative ways". The comments and links being read and spoken about? Not mentioned. Content is secondary. So our exploratory digital learner "enquires" into X views on youtube and finds it fascinating, pursuing it further. At what point does reality kick in? Reality is reasonableness and pragmatism, in other words, expertise.   Extremism is the ultimate expression of egoism, and these ITSE standards are the "me" standards for a "me" generation. We need more pragmatism, more mutual understanding, more commonly accepted norms of research, communication, and ethics. We need to restore the foundations of culture. 

Social media once promised to break us out from our "own little world" and connect us with other people. This utopian view of technology has faded; the reality is that tech reinforces, reflects, and amplifies what we already thought, leading to polarization and conflict. "Curating" my network in the way ITSE suggests, and the "construction" of knowledge does nothing to overcome this. Social networks reward outrage and anger. Post something controversial, likely to appeal to our animal instincts, and it will get a lot of attention. Shouldn't we be encouraging kids to step back from this? 

Discussing the best that has been thought and said in a classroom with an informed, compassionate teacher offers a different perspective from the hee-hawing emotivity of the internet.  The standards talk about being an empowered learner by using tech. Still, no argument is given, at least that I can find, of why using more tech should be enabling or empowering. People go to bed with devices, wake up with devices, recording everything from nice meals to champions league finals, and yet I don't see anyone more empowered by this. Empowered are the deliberately provocative Youtubers or shit-posting, celebrity-status seeking Twitterati. The most outraged or controversial are rewarded by click-bait chasing media tech companies. Tech isn't empowering. We need to wise up. 

Isn't true empowerment about shutting down the screens? About understanding the power of face-to-face discussion and communication? Tech is a crucial tool. It is already everywhere, and we need to learn to balance what it is demanding of us. If we head uncritically forward into a world of ubiquitous tech then Socrates idea that "the examined life is not worth living" could become prophetic. Each of us becomes trapped inside the screen oblivious to the beauty and truth contained in arguments, ideas, and concepts we will never stumble across on our own. 

The learning of math, English, history, history, social studies, even coding or programming involve academic apprenticeship. These cognitive tools are essential for success. They are society and culture's way of "doing more together." No individual can come up with anything like the combined wealth of knowledge that human beings have accrued over humanity's existence without significant guidance. Education trains the proper use of cognitive tools, ITSE "standards" suggest it is all about "my learning" and "my knowledge." Make your tools, they suggest, they will be just as good. 

This egotism seems dangerous to me. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Without a broad understanding of shared culture, individuals are at the whims and fancies of the big tech companies. Who will show kids that what they are learning is right or wrong? Fake or real? A manipulative advert or a genuinely balanced piece? There is so much "me" in these standards, but very little "us." We need more us.