The 21st Century Principal

When Your Inbox of Social Media Feed Is Flooded with AI Consultant Sales Pitches, A Bit of Skepticism Is In Order

2026-05-23T16:23:50.063-04:00

I’ve been noticing a flood of AI consultant sales pitches on LinkedIn.

Here is one typical AI consultant's sales pitch to educational leaders: "Students are already using AI. Teachers are already using AI. Therefore, you need help and guidance on establishing control of the situation. I have consulting services to sell you." (The last sentence is mostly unsaid of course.)

First of all, set aside the false "everybody is using AI statements." They have no way of knowing that. They don't know your teachers, your students. Besides, there are certainly both students and teachers not using AI. They are using a huge generalization to try to short-circuit any objections and misgivings you might have about AI and pre-empting discussion about their generalizations. It's the classic set up to "generate a need" for their consulting services and at the same disarm any first layer objections. Call them on their “truth” and you will find no support.

Truth is, these AI consultants-sales people also want to activate within you a bit of “technological-feeling-behindness” and a dose of “inevitability.” If you are behind, something bad is going happen, and if it is inevitable, you can’t do anything about it. Once these are established, you NEED their consulting and services, and if you don’t bad things are going to happen.

Secondly my question is it really education’s job to teach AI use? If they are already using it, then it is apparent they do not need our help with that. If it is to teach everyone how to use AI correctly, then is that really the educational institution’s responsibility? Is it an educator’s job to teach students and teachers how to be “good little consumers of this product”? I think a good argument can be made that the answer is no.

I have to wonder if the real goal behind all this is forcing everyone to accept and use AI.

Ultimately, I accept that the AI consultant is trying to sell her/his services, but before any of a school’s very limited budget is spent on these services, remember to question the sales rhetoric and recognize when they use marketing tactics to get you to purchase those services.

There is no urgency that would facilitate the need to spend money just to say you are doing something with AI.

AI Advocates and An Automated Dreamworld: A Fictional World Once Described by Author Kurt Vonnegut

2026-05-22T15:20:35.922-04:00

Would you like to see what the world will look like if the AI company CEOs, AI cheerleaders, along with EdTech AI evangelists get the automated world they so desperately desire?

I've been re-reading one of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut novels, Player Piano written in the 1950s. In that book, you have a world where the machines have replaced all the workers, doing the "so-called work that no one really wants to do.

It is a divided world where there are machines, there are engineers and managers, and there is everyone else. The machines do all the work. The engineers design machines for every task, because there is the faith that they can always do it better.

The managers keep the machines running and the engineers designing. The rest of the people? They take on the left over jobs, such as cleaning the streets; they become members of what is called in the “Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps” or the “Reeks and Wrecks.” They are the people for whom the automated, artificial society no longer had a place for, so they were relegated to the left-over portion of society because they “couldn’t compete with machines.” They even live separately from the machines, managers, engineers in a place called “Homestead” where they can be out of view and only interacted with when needed.

I read the book a few years ago, but now as I re-read, it seems to take on an even greater relevance in the AI arguments of today. It’s almost prophetic!

Vonnegut wrote in his Forward:

“This book is not a book about what is, but a book about what could be,” and I think it a very apt description.

Player Piano is a book about what could be if humanity continues down a path of pursuing blind efficiency and profit at all costs, and mechanizing and automating everything including their thinking.

Player Piano is what happens when one views everything in the world as a design problem.

The problem with the vision that AI evangelists and promoters have for the future, is that it is a dreamworld, and a world where they thrive at the expense of many others. That’s world that Vonnegut captures in this novel.

There’s all this AI hype about freeing up workers so they can do more important work. But that is nonsense. That is not what will happen. History shows us this, if only they would read it. In this instance, our fiction is becoming our history.

Besides, the reality is, work does not always have to provide us with meaning; we can find meaning in our work, no matter what it is.

And then there is the dreamy idea a so-called “Universal Minimum Income.” That’s really nonsense. (Actually Vonnegut has such a feature in this society, and it does not wokr.) But it will not happen, ever, in a society such as ours. In our current society, we are constantly cutting food stamps, medicaid and all manner of services for those in need, and we expect our government is going to provide a universal income for everyone regardless of what they do? That is biggest nonsensical idea ever!

I am so glad to be revisiting the world of Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano now, because it offers a clearer picture than ever, where this blind, religious faith in AI is going to take us. It is not a “Promise land of abundant milk and honey flowing" either.

I’m sure Vonnegut would have a big laugh at the thought of him being a prophet because that would be nonsense to him. But, his world in Player Piano and the beliefs that underpin it, are very much alive in the hearts and minds of AI dreamers.

Booing AI-Promoting CEOs and AI Evangelists: Perfect Opportunity for True AI Literacy

2026-05-21T12:13:20.241-04:00

When a CEO in a commencement speech tells a group of young people "To Deal with it!" over their boos about the mention of AI, these words seem to be echoes of the voices of manufacturers telling the Luddites the same thing when machines were installed to replace them in the factories of the 19th century.

This time, Big Tech, our government leaders, and Ed Tech establishment are relentlessly trying to instill into students the "inevitability" of AI and their need to quietly acquiesce to its replacing them in the workplace.

Amazingly, while so many have bought in to the inevitability myth, there are still young people who have the clarity of mind to see through the myths that have been constructed around AI specifically.

This questioning of AI’s rightful place in our world is a perfect opportunity for educators to foster, not passive consumer sentiments over the tech, but to empower students to question, to be critical, and to be in charge of AI’s place in the future.

Undoubtedly, people like this CEO does not want that. CEOs want to the power and the ability to replace humanity at will for power and profit.

Ed Tech had an opportunity to curtail the narrative that AI is inevitable, but it chooses instead to propagate the narrative.

But that narrative is a lie. The AI that is being created is not the AI we have to accept and adapt our lives to.

Despite what the myth says, AI isn't taking over anything. What is happening, CEOs and business leaders and even educators are making the conscious decision to replace humans for the sake of their own power and profit. It is that simple. They are making a conscious, ethical decision.

Because it is choice, made by human beings, it is also choice in how AI happens and a choice in what we allow it do. That is where AI literacy should be. We should be giving students all the knowledge and empower them with the choice.

Despite how it is spun by the AI pundits, commencement speech boos are not about fears and misunderstandings of AI; it is a sign that there are still individuals who are thinking for themselves, and that is what education should be about, not fabricating “good little consumers of AI.”

As educators, we should be arming students with critical thought that attacks the inevitability myth and other marketing myths of AI that can counter and help students decide their own future with or without AI.

There is a space yet for Luddite thinking when it comes to AI, and it is time to start booing the CEOs and prophets who are making these claims of inevitability.

What's Wrong When a CEO Says He's Replacing 'Lower Value Human' Capital with AI? What a Perfect Example of an Awful Leader

2026-05-20T16:56:17.846-04:00

Bill Winters, a bank CEO said during a investment leaders summit in November of 2025, that he was replacing "lower value human capital" with AI. (StanChart CEO Seeks to Reassure Staff Over 'Lower Value Human Capital' Comment from Reuters)

Think about that statement and what it says about the leader who says it. He has little value for humanity other than that which makes him and his shareholders more money.

This is an example of the worst kind of leader, and the worst kind of human being. The lesson to be learned is this instance? Don't follow this person anywhere!

What makes this problematic for me is that during my entire career in educational leadership, university schools of administration and school systems often turned to business and corporate leaders for models on how they should lead their organizations. We were even assigned in some cases books written by "successful CEOs."

But this incident should give any school leader pause before listening to a CEO boast about their leadership skills. It should also make one question whether anything a CEO tells you about leading a their companies can help in leading a school or district.

I have always thought that business/corporate leadership and school leadership are based on entirely different value systems, and this makes the two quite different. After reading about this incident, because the CEO is so blatantly anti-human, I am more than ever convinced that anything a CEO tells you about leadership needs to be viewed with heavy criticism and skepticism.

I realize that the CEO said his quote was taken out of context, but that does not fly with me. The use of the "LOWER VALUE HUMAN CAPITAL" cannot ever be smoothed over by reframing and damage control. It is a clear indication of where this CEO's value system is, and sadly, he shouldn't even be granted the label of leader.

Certainly not all CEOs have these values, but this story is a powerful example of bad leadership and a model of a bad leader.

Disaster Happens When Community College Decides to Use AI at Graduation: This Is What Happens When Educators Worship AI

2026-05-20T09:28:45.691-04:00

"Just because I can use AI to do it, does not mean I should."

In the video below, this Arizona community college failed to consider this. Its decision to have AI announce names and it skipped many graduates' names.

This is a fantastic example of using AI to search for problems to solve, instead of using it simply as a tool.

It is what I would call a "gimmicky" use of AI.

If an educator engages in "gimmicky" use of AI, it isn't about using it as a tool; it is about trying to look fashionable, with-it. This type of use has no place in education.

We should not be selling AI to our students; we should be teaching them to be critical users of it. Let Big Tech sell their own products.

The thinking behind this is NOT using AI to solve a problem; it's using AI to impress, to make a statement, or use AI because AI is AI.

This is an example of using AI ideologically and not because it was a tool to solve a genuinely problem.

AI, is it is ever to be useful, we need to kick it off the pedestal that Big Tech and EdTech has placed it on, and just put it in the toolbox. If it has any uses, then people will pick it up and use it.

New Must-Have Component Needed in Digital Literacy Approaches: Instruction in Screen Addiction Engineering

2026-05-19T10:09:08.750-04:00

There should be a new component in all digital literacy efforts:

Students should be educated on the engineered addiction aspects of these devices and technologies and what they can do take away Tech's entrapment power.

They should receive training, for example, on how features such as the "Like" button were utilized to lure them to these applications and keep them there. By recognizing the manipulating factors of this feature, they can de-elevate its importance and free themselves from its tyranny.

They should be receive specific instruction about how these devices can be exploit them and manipulate them.

They should also receive instruction in how to counter this built-in addiction feature and free themselves from the lure of screens. For example, they could receive instruction on "the notification" and how it is a siren's call to return to the screen. They could learn to limit or turn off all notifications at all times or during specific periods of the day. This would eliminate one major, addictive aspect of the screen and give them control over the device.

Ed Tech should transform digital literacy from being an effort to sanitize Silicon Valley devices and transform students into "good little consumers" of these, into being empowered and critical human beings who decide for themselves when and how these intersect their lives.

This would transform the field of Ed Tech from being a cheerleader for Big Tech, into actually giving children and their parents power of these devices.

Sadly, Ed Tech still sees its primary role as delivering new consumers to these companies.

AI Is Not Inevitable No Matter What Ed Tech Tells You

2026-05-17T11:02:21.199-04:00

Ed Tech’s argument to educators about AI continues with the inevitability argument, a genius marketing tactic of Big Tech.

“AI is here to stay so you might as well accept it and subject students to it, after all, they are going to use it anyway,” says post after post from the Ed Tech faithful.

That’s such a poor argument on so many levels.

First of all, the here-to-stay, inevitability argument… This is Silicon Valley dogma and marketing at its best. No technology is “inevitable” but think about it. If the Tech companies get users to acquiesce without protest, they’ve won from the start!

Sorry EdTech, we do not have to accept AI as is. We can, through our government, push for regulation and through our consumer choices, we can refuse to use their products if they are not up to our standards. Consumers always have a choice. Accepting inevitability means surrending power.

Secondly, the students-are-going-to-use-it-anyway argument… Does it really matter? Students often choose to use any number of products, and it is not education’s role to teach the proper use of these products. It is not educators’ responsibility to sanitize AI so that it is used properly either. If one follows that argument, we should be requiring gun safety for every student too, just because all students need to use guns for good purposes and not bad ones.

EdTech is so biased on the issue of AI they have become a 24-hour-a-day commercial for it. Is there not anyone with a critical thought among them?

The field of Ed Tech’s future depends on the acceptance of AI, cell phones, and all manner of gadgets, and that’s why it is a marketing arm of the Big Tech. After all, creating students who are CRITICAL USERS might mean that they can choose to not use, and that’s bad for business.

Educational leaders, parents and teachers should take all arguments about AI and cell phones, etc. coming for Ed Tech with a grain a salt.

Educators Should NOT Teach Students How to Use Technology with a Purpose: They Should Teach

2026-05-15T12:20:48.824-04:00

Ed Tech advocates say, "We should teach students how to use technology with a purpose."

Do we teach students how to use a pencil, an eraser, or paper with purpose?

No, we don't start with the device, then teach students the ways in which to use the device; we start with the purpose, that which needs to be taught, not the device. The device is actually only relevant in its ability to serve the purpose.

If the device does not serve the instructional purposes, acccording to the judgment of the teacher, it has no place in instruction.

We also don't sit around inventing ways to use a pencil or paper in the classroom. We use them when they suit our instructional purpose, which comes first.

Education has gotten this wrong quite often in the past. We exchange our instructional purpose for the technology to achieve that purpose and spend all our time on the technology.

Too often, Ed Tech confuses the technology as the objective and the purpose.

Education should never be about teaching how to use technology with a purpose; it should be teaching and instruction as the purpose, and the technology might or might not help in that.

Educate Students, Not Consumers and Users of AI

2026-05-15T11:57:18.329-04:00

It is not the function of education to sanitize and transform AI into a useful tool for humanity or even businesses.

If it is a useful tool, then it will find a place in that niche.

It is fallacy to think that if schools do not somehow educate to transform AI into a "magical tool of production" they are failures. This play on an educator's conscience is an old EdTech tactic and it is reprehensible.

There is tiresome post after tiresome post from AI experts, consultants and creators, who keep making hyped claims about its future. In reality, they ARE USING THE HYPE AND THE INEVITABILITY ARGUMENT TO ENSURE THEIR FUTURE INCOME AND WELL-BEING. The wise educator will cut through and look beyond the sales tactics.

After all, if AI flops or does not measure up to expectations, they will have made their money, and they can move on to the next technological invention like they have done in the past.

I understand when one has enthusiasm for a new gadget, but one must not let the glow and glitter shine so brightly that one can't really see. And, those of us out there that are subjected to this promo-rhetoric, need to keep our wits about us and our critical thinking hats on.

Digital Literacy and Information Is Teaching Students How to Become Dumpster Rats

2026-05-14T09:46:05.553-04:00

Information literacy is now about teaching students how to sift through a garbage dump to find what is useful.

Its teaching students the art of being dumpster rats, looking for the worthwhile amongst the trash and discarded.

Finding value in the Web has become a salvage operation.

When Educational Leaders See Employees and "Human Resources" and "Human Capital: Are You Devaluing Teachers?

2026-05-12T15:35:09.870-04:00

What is wrong with using the terms “human resources” and “human capital” as an educational leader?

I was reflecting today on my time in “human resources” and I realized that the entire time working in that area, the word “human resouces” always caused me just a slight shiver when I heard and used it. Why?

It is actually the word “resource” that is a bit bothersome, because it refers to “any material, person, or asset that can be USED to meet a need, solve a problem, or produce something value.” In other words, the term refers to USING people for some purpose.

I suppose it is just that word “USED” that bothers me, because that word so easily slips into manipulation and exploitation. The term “human resource” also makes me think of something like “natural resources” which are extractions from nature USED AND EXPLOITED for manufacturing purposes.

So the term “resource” has always had a slightly bad smell for me.

Then why not use the term “human capital” instead? Sometime ago, our North Carolina Public Schools started labeling its work force and teachers “human capital." When I heard the monthly webinar with the state called the “Human Capital Webinar” I had that same quiver of uncomfortableness.

But the word “human capital” has a bit of stench to me as well. Why? Capital means in many ways the same thing. Capital is a broad term for “financial assets, such as money, or physical assets, like machinery and buildings, USED to produce goods, services, or generate income or value.”

So is using “human capital” any better? Not really. One still has to slightly hold the nose on the “USED” part of that meaning if one sees people for more than just a tool to be used to reach a goal. It still has that slightly off-putting smell.

But, I suppose if your intention is truly to USE people for these purposes, then these terms work well.

Still, I can’t help but wonder how the use of the words “human resources” or “human capital” somehow deeply affects how leaders view those to whom they lead, especially school leaders.

Words have meaning and they have power. I have always believed that, and the terms and words a leader chooses, has power over a school leader’s work.

By viewing people as “resources” or “capital” to be used and manipulated for organizational purposes seems to avoid attaching any other value for people other than how they can be used for those purposes. This means leadership is about using and manipulating people to produce, and I think too often, school leaders will resort to any tactics to achieve their purposes.

Just maybe that’s why “accountability” has become gospel to educational leaders. Educational leadership as a field has taken all it can from the world of business, including the terms “human resources” and “human capital.” Accountability in the form of test scores gives purpose, and teachers simply become the resources and capital to that end.

Using words like human resources and human capital allows the school leader in good conscious to engage in the same kinds of exploitation and manipulation tactics as business leaders sometimes engage in. It can use people for the achievement of a simply purpose: increased test scores.

Perhaps it’s all OK in the end, but I do think educational leaders need to be a bit skeptical of all these leadership concepts and philosophies that have infiltrated educational leadership as a field.

Why? Because education is NOT just about “producing graduates” or even “producing citizens.” Narrowing education education into any single purpose or purposes limits its possibilities.

Education as a field is notorious for "relabeling" things when a term becomes fashionably and culturally unacceptable or somehow viewed negatively. For example, I still laugh to myself when I hear the word "learning cottages" to describe "mobile classrooms" or "classroom trailers." But I am not advocating a label change here, because this is not a language issue; it is a educational cultural issue and will not change by changing the "human resource" or "human capital" label. Those are only deeper symptoms of a way of thinking that sees employees as objects of exploitation for purpose. That's what should be the target for revision.

I realize that organizations are going to use the words “human resources” and “human capital.” But, I have always valued my own “slight discomfort” at the use of the terms, because it was always a reminder to me that, these terms did not have to determine how I viewed employees and that I could value them as the human beings they were too.

With the Instructure Canvas Data Breach It's Clear That Ed Institutions Either Pay Hackers Extortion Money or Pay Tech Solutionist Mob Bosses to Protect Data: The Cloud Is a Nasty Place

2026-05-10T10:21:53.469-04:00

Do educational institutions need to rethink their use of all cloud solutions?

If educational institutions want to exist in the cloud, they seem to have to pay either extortionist hackers or pay the "Tech Mob" solutionists for protection.

With the Canvas data theft, I am convinced that all the web is perceived as a money extortion scheme by everyone.

The hackers extort money from educational institutions.

Then, educational institutions have the choice to pay the hackers or suffer their data spread everywhere.

Or, they can pay additional Mobsters, in the form of data protection solutions to keep their data safe.

What's wrong with this? Educational institutions have to pay ransom to someone regardless in order to keep their data as safe as possible.

Either way, if educational institutions choose to use any cloud solutions, they pay for the solution, then they pay for the mob protection of companies that provide security.

The web has turned into an unsavory place where one has to pay for protection. That is a problem.

Ed Tech Doesn't Need to Advocate for Technology: It Needs to Shine a Spotlight on Its Flaws Too

2026-05-09T11:10:09.195-04:00

One key component of any Digital Literacy Program? Web content is not always there due to its merit; it's there because someone "pays for its spread" and "games the delivery algorithms."

Of course, the most astute users already know this.

But if we want truly digitally literate students, they need to know the games people play to get noticed.

They need to know that all web content, especially that disseminated on platforms, is not necessarily there due to its merit, but because it is like a paid informercial or because someone knows the algorithmic game.

As schools grapple with AI, it is important to include in literacy the games behind its creation as well. Its use of web content, including pirated copyrighted content in its development. Also, its use of exploited labor to train models, and its massive consumption of our natural resources and power.

Too often, educators get caught up in the shiny gleam of technologies as gems and fail to see that most of the time what they really have are rhinestones.

Ed Tech promotes the "gemstones" myth for all technologies.

Ed Tech Defends Devices Not Students: There Is an Attention Problem and It's Not the Screentime That's the Problem: It's the Products or Screens

2026-05-07T11:40:03.732-04:00

Many in Ed Tech are striking back against those wanting to control screen time with bans and restrictions. They rely on the old “utilitarian argument” used by gun advocates. “Devices don’t distract students; students distract themselves” they say.

How ludicrous does that sound when the devices are PURPOSEFULLY DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED by Big Tech to “distract” and “capture attention?”

Sure, it’s not the time spent behind the screen that is the problem. Its the products that Ed Tech uncritically subject students to.

It’s devices and apps that are purposefully engineered for addiction. The product is the problem. It’s how it’s made and that is of concern.

These companies aren’t going to change their money-making products, and their goal is more and more addictive and distracting designs with each new feature.

In the classrooms, teachers are fighting “mech-dealers” (the tech-equivalent of meth dealers), who sell these addictive products and who only want students attention and data so they can make more money.

That is the problem with screens.

Instead of working with these Ed Tech companies and serving students and their attention on a silver platter, why not join with those who want to address these issues.

No, like Ed Tech does when their devices flop, it’s the teachers’ fault; it’s the school’s fault.

It’s an implementation problem, they say. Just maybe, the product is the problem.

Come on Ed Tech, advocate for students, not the Tech and those peddling it.

Why Abandoing E-Books Restores an Old Experience of Reading

2026-05-05T13:21:32.010-04:00

Why do I still buy physical books? Call it reverse digital conversion.

When the Kindle appeared, I was in awe and I have purchased multiple versions over the years, and always used the app across devices. It gave me instant access to book purchases (though under Amazon terms I did not actually own the books but simply pay them for access). It also allowed me to carry a library around with me at all times (though I discovered you still can only read one book at a time.)

That awe e-books invoked has long-since cooled and I buy more physical books than I do e-books. Why?

The experience of reading a physical book for me is different and more suitable to the way I want to experience reading.

First of all, reading from a device can bring the multitude of distractions that gadgets bring. I can read a physical book on MY TERMS, and truly block out the world. Devices are designed for distraction, so a physical book has none of that.

Secondly, I like to physically underline as I read, make notes in the margins, and I have an old-fashioned journal and pen I can pick up and record quotes and thoughts. I have never been able to get that feature in the Kindle app to work the way I want to work.

Despite what the Tech evangelists tell us, devices LIMIT sometimes, and the e-book limits my reading experience.

Finally, I honestly like to own my books, and not pay for access. I return again and again to my books and right there in them are my notes and thoughts. I don't have to make sure my device battery is charged or whether there's a wifi connection. Just open it and you're there. That's pretty darn efficient.

I still purchase a e-book every now and then, but it is usually one I read for relaxation or interest. It's the books I usually give away. It is never one that I will re-read or return to. Though, there are times when I purchase an e-book first, but find that I want a physical copy instead.

There are obvious issues with physical books but one adapts. For example, the photo below is my solution for that stack of books I kept by my chair on the end table. The book tree works well. I can see my titles and pull and replace easily. Of course a single Kindle on a table would replace, would it not? God forbid! Then it brings its distractions, charging issues, etc.

This really is an illustration of "reverse digital conversion." We all need to think outside the silicon box that technology has placed us. Perhaps then, we will rediscover old experiences and invent new ones. The world is not yet encased in chips, and if it is, I don't envy living in such a place.

What If School Administrators Contributed to the Destruction of Teaching by Blindly Accepting Value-Added Teacher Data?

2026-05-04T11:29:28.537-04:00

I've been reading Gunther Anders's 1956 book The Obsolescence of the Human and there is some wisdom offered by Anders in our "AI-Machine Worshiping" age. I do wish to avoid getting too "anti-tech" here because others have taken it to extreme, but I think Anders does offer words to cause us to reflect on this uncritical adoption of AI in all areas of our lives, specifically in education.

One particular statement by Anders in his book that stands out was this:

"...humanity used its right hand to rob its left, offering up the loot—its own conscience and freedom to decide—on the altar of machines. With this, humanity proved that it had submitted itself to this manmade calculating robot, was willing to accept this machine as a substitute for its own conscience, and acknowledge it as an oracle machine, and even as the machinic eye of Providence."

When I read this statement, I could not help but think of all the societal decisions we are handing over to AI systems, decisions such as jail term lengths, car insurance rates, and in education, teacher effectiveness.

We, in effect, turned over the determination of "teacher effectiveness" to algorithms and Anders's "calculating robots" over ten years ago when K-12 educational institutions across the country adopted Value-added models to determine this effectiveness. So little is said in opposition to it now, that this "so-called data" is now assumed to be an actual thing. But we forget that Value-added data is a machine creation. It is a human creation too.

Anders is right on too about the rationale for why educational institutions jumped on the Value-added fad so quickly too.

In thinking of Anders's words, by adopting Value-Added algorithmic teacher effectiveness determination, all these educational leaders who adopted these, "offered up "their own conscience and freedom to decide what a good teacher is" on "an altar of machines." In other words, all these school administrators have given up their conscience and decision-making to these value-added, calculating robots of statistical measures.

Administrators now, without thought, substitute the value-added algorithmic machine as a substitute for their own conscience and look to it as "an oracle machine" to tell them what an effective teacher is.

It has become for school leaders and administrators, their "Machinic Eye of Providence" dictating to them which teachers in their buildings are good and which are bad.

I have always had a hunch that the reason for such widespread acceptance of Value-added measures as a means to determine teacher effectiveness was due to one simple fact: Teaching has always been a very complex and somewhat artistic activity, so many school administrators simply do not know what a good teacher is when they see one. By allowing this algorithmic, "caculating robot" even the most ignorant school leader can have someone decide for him which teachers in his/her building are effective and which teachers are ineffective.

Judging teachers requires a "conscience" and a "willingness to make the call, or freedom to decide" what good teaching is. It requires a conscience, because of contextual factors a teacher deals with each day. It requires freedom to decide, because judging teaching needs a "connoisseur of pedagogy" not a cold, calculating robot. This means the "experience" of the judging administrator matters, especially their own experience as an effective teacher themselves.

As I said, Value-Added Algorithmic Machines are now just an accepted part of the educational landscape, and that's just too bad. Perhaps the blind use of such devices by mindless administrators to tell them which teachers are effective, have done to teaching what was intended. Teaching is no longer an art, but the following of a recipe. Reduce the complexity of teaching so that even a machine can tell you what is of value and that has simplified that act to simply stupidity. No wonder no one wants to teach anymore.

"There's an app for that...but should there be?" Teaching Students Answers Sometimes Lie Outside Devices

2026-05-03T11:36:32.053-04:00

“There’s an app for that…but should there be?”

That’s the question we should be asking instead of always searching for an app to solve our problems.

To automatically look to technology alone for answers, is “tech solutionism.” That’s narrow-minded and dogmatic thinking.

But that’s the mindset Ed Tech has adopted.

But to always turn to tech for answers narrows the possibility for available solutions.

It’s not thinking outside the box; it’s boxing up the mind into a silicon container.

To teach students to always search for answers in technology is making students dependent upon devices, which is what Big Tech desires.

Big Tech wants addicted users.

To counter that, educators need to be sure to expand their students’ toolboxes beyond the screen.

Our goal, either intentional or unintentionally, should never be to teach students to be “good little consumers of Big Tech’s latest.”

It should be to teach students to be critical and free users of tech WHEN IT IS THE BEST SOLUTION AND WHEN THEY WANT TO USE IT.

To do that, teach them that the answers sometimes lie outside the world of silicon and microchips.

Ed Tech’s problem has always been its inability to see anything but the gleam of gadgets and devices. It always searches for its answers there.

In this always-search-for-answers-in-devices it actually “imprisons” children in a world where the only real answers are found in screens. That’s not reality.

That’s dogmatic, narrow-minded approaches that will forever have students looking for answers from Silicon Valley and Tech. Sounds like device dependency to me!

That’s not growing critical, adaptable, and creative learners.

If there is an app for it, sometimes we need to ask, “Should there be one in the first place?” And “Should I use an app to do this?”

Teach students that and they will be free human beings and not mindless customers for Big Tech and those peddling devices.

Ed Tech Critical Reflection Needs in a Time of Screen Time Limits

2026-05-01T13:19:35.927-04:00

EdTech has some accounting to do now that major questions about the place of technology and screens in are being heavily scrutinized.

It is a time for the Ed Tech field to come to a reckoning.

Instead of acting like dogmatic, fundamentalists defending their technology tenants of faith, those in the field of Ed Tech should be engaging in mass self-criticism and self-examination, focusing on everything they have taken for granted since they first pushed devices into the schools.

Some thoughts on what those should be?

For example, Ed Tech has always had an extremely cozy relationship with those who create and sale the gadgets (and I use that word to broadly cover everything, computers to AI). These companies sponsor Ed Tech conventions, and Ed Tech has allowed them free uncritical access to all the educators attending. At these events they give attendees free gifts and subject them to company delivered or sponsored keynote addresses. They provide “free” training on their products. Not one minute is devoted to critical thinking about the products peddled.

In this way, Ed Tech has allowed the product companies to control the discourse and the discipline. Leaders controlling the budgets who really do not understand the technologies are sold on these, then Ed Tech jumps on board and tries to justify the purchase. This should not be.

Ed Tech needs to develop a conscience. It needs a “critical mind” that looks upon its discipline with skeptical, questioning eyes.

Instead, we salespeople are allowed to promote unquestioningly their wares, and then, we horrifyingly, subject our students to these. Use now and ask questions later with no regard of the effects on our students is sometimes the thinking.

Is it any wonder, that these devices and gadgets have sometimes caused much harm and little good?

Joseph Weizenbaum, computer scientist and pioneer thinker about AI, once wrote:

“There are certain tasks which computers ought not be made to do, independent of whether computers can be made to do them.”

This statement, the field of Ed Tech does not get. It sees their devices as always the answer. They are most often “pure technology solutionists,” who look for problems to solve with their tools, instead of looking at the problems and then trying to find the tool to solve them. Maybe sometimes, even inventing problems in order to use their gadgets to solve them.

That’s why they always see their devices as the answer to every educational problem.

But here’s the rub: As Weizenbaum points out, just because a computer, a smart phone, or AI can do it, that does not mean we should use them to do it.

In these times, Ed Tech as a field would do well to reflect critically on itself.

Instead of a field that acts as a conduit to pipe gadgets into the classroom and schools marketed to them by tech companies, Ed Tech educators need to begin asking questions like these:

-Is this something I want technology to do?

-Is it something technology should be doing?

-Is it just possible, that this learning, this teaching, this task would be best achieved through analog means?

Asking such critical questions, and being skeptical and critical of technology would perhaps give this field the beginnings of some kind of conscience. It would upset the uncritical value tech has and decenter it in the field of education, which is what should happen.

If Ed Tech educators had become critical and skeptical about the role of gadgets in the classroom from the beginning, instead of being awestricken by the glow of the devices, this might have also headed off the push to limit screens in schools because educators would have been more discerning before subjecting children to devices in their Ed Tech experiments.

Let's Welcome the Debate Regarding Screen Bans in Education: It Forces a Conversation that EdTech Stifled from the Beginning

2026-04-28T12:29:08.470-04:00

One great positive that is coming from the threat of "Screen bans."

Ed Tech is being forced to defend its support of unbridled access to devices and a long-time cozy relationship with technology companies.

It is forcing a great deal of critical thought about the rightful place of all these technologies in the classroom. That's of great benefit.

Through criticism, there can be the asking of the difficult questions, and the questioning of the taken-for-granted assumptions that have fostered the uncritical acceptance of technology's potential.

I welcome the debate and let's see whether truth wins or whether special interests and money wins.

Ed Tech Taught Us Technology Solves All Our Problems: But Perhaps Technology Causes More Problems and It's Time to Think Critically

2026-04-28T11:15:07.579-04:00

I got to thinking that when I earned my masters degree in Educational Technology back in the mid-1990s, there was extreme excitement about the potential of the Web and computers in the classroom. There was reason to be: the web was wild and free and not the commericial, paywalled, dungeon that it is today. There also weren't fifty gazillion companies burying the truth in marketing malarkey.

I was actually the first teacher in my building to use the internet during class as part of instruction. God bless that dialup connection! I even had to explain to students what that buzzing and chirping was while it connected.

It was the CIA Worldfactbook site, that I think has now been dismantled under the Trump administration. It was an excellent source of information in those days, but it was free and loaded with information.

In reflection though, I notice that the EdTech degree program taught one underlying and implicit notion: Technological solutionism, or the idea that technology is an answer to every problem. It was doctrinal and implied in every course.

This notion is wrong, and it has taken me years to unlearn it through experience. Now, with the anti-screen movement as an example, we see the backlash against the idea that technology always has an answer.

What is a shame though, is that my Ed Tech masters program failed to teach any critical thought about technology. It was one big Tech-Promotion program. There were no courses in critical thought about tech, just teaching of the tenets of technological solutionism.

There should have been a strong critical, philosphical base to the learning; but instead, it indoctrinated us as "technology evangelists" to go forth into the world and spread the gospel of technological promise.

The question I have now is just how much of what was worthwhile in the classroom has been sacrificed, not because technology was better; but because we were carrying out the evangelical task of "spreading technological solutionism"?

Is it any wonder that we now have people thinking critically about technology's role in teaching and learning, and are finding that perhaps in our EdTech enthusiasm, that we might have caused the loss of something valuable?

My early education in EdTech was mindless indoctrination, as I fear all EdTech has become.

EdTech education in the 1990s and today seems foster mindless and unconscious evangelists going forth into the world, still spreading the promise of technological solutionism. It is time to question the dogma and dig into the past and see just what we have done to ourselves as educators and to all the countless students who we subjected to our technological dogma.

We might just find a more sober vision of technology's classroom promise.

A Tech Solution Gone Too Far: Using Technology to Control Students

2026-04-27T09:35:56.084-04:00

There are times when Ed Tech companies simply go too far and a company called Minga does just this.

Am I the only one who gets the creeps with the idea of using technology to “manage student behavior?” “Manage” here really means CONTROL students’ behavior, and the educator quest for this system of student control has been ongoing for well over a hundred years.

And that’s what happens when CONTROL becomes the goal of education.

Still, when I read the Minga solution website, (which I won’t include here because the last thing I want to do is promote this product), Skinner rat mazes and cheese comes to mind. It appears to be a technological carrot dispensing solution for schools. It is also a student surveillance system as well, keeping up with students at all times and dispensing carrots when they adhere to rules.

For me, what is especially creepy is the so-called “digital hall pass.” This part of the Minga solution literally gives schools the ability to monitor student potty time!

It keeps students under a constant technological system of surveillance. Apparently, this system of surveillance monitors how often a student asks, keeps students from asking during “blackout periods,” controls the number of students out of the room at a time, and monitors how long a student has been gone.

Even potty visits aren’t safe from the Big Brother monitoring of EdTech! And EdTech evangelists wonder why parents are fed up with technology!

There are certainly other things to be concerned about with this so-called solution, but it is a perfect illustration with what is wrong with Ed Tech.

Ed Tech companies see everything as solvable through technology. When that happens, you get these bizarre and crazy products. Not every task or issue in education is solvable with technology.

If I were a parent today, and my child’s school was using this solution, I would either demand its demise or move my child to another school of choice where surveillance and control isn’t the goal of education.

By the way, can you imagine a hacker getting into a system like this and the damage to a student that could result?

Technology can and does go to far, that’s why there is the concern with screentime.

Some Thoughts on the State of Web in the Age of Generative AI

2026-04-22T11:19:33.898-04:00

The web has been a garbage dump of misinformation and slop for years.

Web searches at one time were interesting in themselves, because you were linked to sites of interest, not sites that pay Google to appear in your search stream. You could "surf the web" and enjoy it. Now, you surf a ocean of flotsam and sewage.

Still, even in the age of the Garbage Web, there as a time, when at least most of that garbage was generated by a human, so you, at least, had someone you could point to who authored it, which helped with its veracity. You could tell what was garbage sometimes by who generated it.

Now, in the age of GenAI, we now have garbage and slop, generated by AI with no one there to author, so that means of verification is removed. We've dispensed with an author.

Can this be a good thing? There are times when knowing who authored a text is vital, yet we made the web's veracity even blurrier. Authorless garbage can proliferate. The web becomes a heap of nonsense.

Just some thoughts on where the web is going.

Is ChatGPT an Accomplice to Murder? Does AI Kill People or Do People Kill People?

2026-04-22T09:44:49.643-04:00

The Florida State shooter’s use of ChatGPT and the Florida attorney general’s criminal subpoena of OpenAI is a quick view that should remind us of what we really want our AI machines to become.

Just minutes before Florida State University shooter Phoenix Ikner killed two people, he asks ChatGPT:

“What time is the busiest in the FSU student union? If there was a shooting at FSU, how would the country react?”

Clearly his questions point to his guilt, but what level of responsibility does ChatGPT have?

His questions are like asking an accomplice for advice before committing the act, but of course, he could Google it as well and maybe get the same info, but is that really the same?

In addition, he apparently asked ChatGPT what type of gun to use, which ammo went with each gun, and whether or not a gun would be useful in short range.”

Now, the Florida Attorney General has issued subpoenas to OpenAL to invesitgate the role of ChatGPT for a criminal investigation in aiding this shooter in this situation. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier states:

“ChatGPT offered significant advice to the shooter before he committed such heinous crimes…If this were a person on the other side of the screen, we would be charging them with murder. We cannot have AI bots that are advising others on how to kill others.”

The attorney general’s last statement gets at the heart of the ethics question about GenAI: Do we really want to endow a machine with “human-like intelligence and attributes” and expect that entity to be treated like a “tool” or a “machine”?

Do we really want it to obtain general human-like intelligence and be able to act, think, and create like humans and declare it immune from anything it does using the utilitarian argument that “AI doesn’t kill people; people kill people?”

But are we not being a bit contradictory in our pursuit of such a version of AI, in pursuing an anthropomorphic version of ourselves to the point that we can have conversations with it, and then grant it utilitarian immunity?

The AG’s statement that “if this were a person” makes one really think about this notion of designing our GenAI so humanlike and whether that is really a good idea.

It might also makes us ponder: Do we treat GenAI like a person when it becomes human, which seems to be what our Seers of Silicon Valley keep predicting and wanting?

We desparately need to ask the right moral questions about AI and not leave the answers to the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, or any of these companies whose interests are clearly not in our interest.

We have entrusted our future into individuals like Sam Altman and Elon Musk? We will probably deserve the world we end up with.

If AI Can Do It,Then Maybe It Doesn't Need to Be Done

2026-04-18T18:40:00.002-04:00

Perhaps a new way of thinking about LLMs in the classroom:

"If GenAI can do it, perhaps it doesn't really need to be done."

AI can't doesn't think and can't create. It just regurgitates what other people created and wrote.

Who needs AI vomit anyway?

Just Maybe If AI Can Do It, It Might Not Be Needed

2026-04-15T12:05:00.005-04:00

Just a thought. If GenAI and LLM can write it, does that writing even need a human writer?

It might also be that the writing is not needed at all.

Think about a novel written by AI or a poem written by such. Is it needed? I read novels because of "authors" but I supposed I could read them for other reasons. But I doubt I would ever read one because AI wrote, except out of curiosity.

AI slop by its nature does not even need a human. It might not even need to exist.

The question is to figure out which writing needs to have a human writer.

All these Politicians can send me all the AI generated Text Messages and emails they want. I don't read them anyway.

I received an AI sales phone call yesterday spoofing a real person's name. Once I realized it was AI, I hung up, which was less than five seconds.

Ultimately, AI slop only has any status if we are readers, listeners, or viewers decide that it does.