Software has existed for grading and primary classrooms since the early 2000s. The software was awful, and expensive. When you look at Microsoft's new Office 365 offerings for schools...it makes me pretty enthusiastic for the future. I don't see this as a race to the bottom at all. Though I can see some problems with ecosystem lock-ins. But, US schools have long been teaching for the past, Microsoft and Google's new offerings should help schools to lift themselves out of that rut. There are trade offs, but I think the benefits outweigh the bad. My first computer courses in school were on an Apple, that doesn't mean I used Apple for the rest of my life.
The ethicist is pretty concerned about the "arms race for attention", which seems to go far beyond software that simply grades assignments. Sure, the quality and price of those apps may have been disrupted, but there also seems to be a pseudo-social component to education apps that didn't exist in the early 2000's (at least my school).
I think we can agree that building quality CRUD apps has become much more straightforward in the last several years (which could explain the improved quality of grading apps), but there are many ethical questions around data collection, user-engagement, etc. that extend far beyond basic tooling that existed 20 years ago.
This feels like an extension of the overarching debate around social media in general, which Tristan Harris also criticizes regularly.
Interesting comparison to the food industry's race to the bottom, only to be supplanted at the top by retails such as Trader Joe's. Could Facebook's addictive algorithms eventually be supplanted by something more wholesome? The difference between the food industry and social media is that a single person can switch grocery stores on a whim, but social media platform migration requires a crowd.
Facebook can easily be a dumpster fire, but I've found ways to get a lot of value out of it.
First off, by not letting myself get dragged into bad behavior when provoked, which is hard, when it comes to talking about controversial topics, but primarily by focusing on single topic groups that keep a tight rein on topics of discussion... in other words, rules like "No politics or religion, etc." or "We are here because we like "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and not to hate on J.J. Abrams", etc.
Even fandom-based groups can be ugly, but by looking for groups where the focus is on the positive rather than the negative, great discussion and even debate can be had without having things degenerate to YouTube comments level. Some of these groups will even have an "entrance exam" asking you a trivia question or for your opinion on the topic so that you must demonstrate you actually know something about what the group discusses, and aren't just there to throw grenades.
I think this is the way people can make good use of the fact that "everyone" is on Facebook. It allows you to create your own little clubhouse, and as with real clubs, some are good and some are bad, but you can look for the good ones and leave the bad ones behind.
tl;dr On Facebook, private groups can be very beneficial.
I can see how forcing kids onto FB is a major issue, but the article seemed to imply the same was true for other Big Tech EDU platforms (AFAIK the main ones being Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams for Education)
If a kid starts using a chromebook in elementary school (sometimes as young as kindergarten), they are more inclined to use google’s products later. They don’t even get the opportunity to make a conscious choice in their default tech platform, and google might not be the best choice for them. A kindergartener shouldn’t have to think about the privacy implications of their tech choices in my opinion, so maybe the default choice should be a platform with a better track record.
I'm an educator in a 'Google' school board. We use google products for all documentation, and it's given me pause to think that Google's ML algorithms will be combing through allegedly confidential documents. Is it appropriate for a 3rd grader's bathroom accidents to be documented 'in the cloud', subject to Google's massive profile-making engine? Google Apps for Education (or whatever the title) makes assurances against targeted advertising for students, but it's anyone's guess as to what happens with student account data after it's exported to a 'grownup' account at graduation.
It's unclear to me whether confidential communication respecting students using Google products meets our legal obligations, given that I'm in Canada and (as far as I know) Google doesn't have any data centers physically located in Canada...
So, if your child goes to a school which has "gone Google", personal information about your student is sent to Google without your consent, and their sole path to success depends on interacting with and sending more data to Google. Students are often required to purchase[1], carry, and use Google-controlled hardware daily as part of their routine.
The student has no choice (and no chance at privacy), because the decision was made for them by a school administrator who was excited about getting $100 laptops in bulk.
It's hard to imagine a more exciting situation to be in if you're Google or Microsoft: You have guaranteed customers who literally are required to buy their products. They're forced to buy in, year after year. And the further the buy-in, the further a school system has invested into Google or Microsoft's education platform, the less ability they have to pivot, since the devices they bought are locked to those platforms, the software they're using is running on those platforms' cloud servers, their curriculum is tied to those platforms, etc.
I think the pox here we need to deal with is vertical integration. We need to put an end to the concept of a single company selling you hardware, providing the software, and locking you in on services.
A fun similar racket is body cams: Taser will give a police department free body cams for every officer, so, you know, nobody has an excuse not to have body cams, as far as the public sees. But those body cams only work with their cloud service (which isn't free), and thanks to the handy fact that evidence has to be retained for many years, Taser can effectively make it impossible to stop subscribing once a department signs up.
[1]The school may or may not purchase it for your student, but you paid for it in your taxes anyways.
I got a young friend that is quite bright minded. He is an engineer, graduated from a top school. He works for Microsoft selling software, mostly the Office suit to schools ... Meanwhile I'm a FOSS "enthusiast". There are a lot of money in the school enterprise sector.
Here that same Google design ethicist explains in detail how technology hijacks your mind [1].
TL;DR:
Hijack 1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices. Ask yourself: What’s not on the menu?, Why am I being given these options and not others? Do I know the menu provider’s goals? Is this menu empowering for my original need, or are the choices actually a distraction?
Hijack 2: Make apps behave like Slot Machines - give a variable reward. If you want to maximize addictiveness, link a user’s action (like pulling a lever) with a variable reward. You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing. Addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable.
Hijack 3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI). If I convince you that I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or remove your account — because there is a 1% chance you could be missing something important.
Hijack 4: Social Approval. When you get tagged by my friend, you think s/he made a conscious choice to tag you, when actually s/he just responds to Facebook’s suggestion, not making an independent choice. Thus Facebook controls the multiplier for how often millions of people experience their social approval on the line.
Hijack 5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat). You follow me — it’s rude not to follow you back. When you receive an invitation from someone to connect, you imagine that person making a conscious choice to invite you, when in reality, they likely unconsciously responded to LinkedIn’s list of suggested c ontacts.
Hijack 6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay
Hijack 7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery. Messages that interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond than messages delivered asynchronously.
Hijack 8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons. When you you want to look up a Facebook event happening tonight (your reason) the Facebook app doesn’t allow you to access it without first landing on the news feed (their reasons), so Facebook converts every reason you have for using it, into their reason which is to maximize the time you spend consuming things. In an ideal world, apps would always give you a direct way to get what you want separately from what they want.
Hijack 9: Inconvenient Choices. Businesses naturally want to make the choices they want you to make easier, and the choices they don’t want you to make harder. NYTimes.com claims to give you “a free choice” to cancel your digital subscription. But instead of just doing it when you hit “Cancel Subscription,” they force you to call a phone number that’s only open at certain times.
Hijack 10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies. People don’t intuitively forecast the true time cost of a click when it’s presented to them. Sales people use “foot in the door” techniques by asking for a small innocuous request to begin with (“just one click”), and escalating from there (“why don’t you stay awhile?”). Virtually all engagement websites use this trick.
This is huge in mobile apps. Loot creates, "packs", etc. which means every end result doesn't have a fixed cost, but an "Expected" cost. I.e. if you want a certain item, you don't know how many times you have to buy a $3 pack to get it. You know you would pay $15 for it, though. So you start pulling that lever, hoping you'll get it. It's gambling, essentially. Literally a slot machines where you put $3 in, pull a lever, and maybe you get nothing good, something okay, or something great.
[+] [-] partiallypro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] save_ferris|7 years ago|reply
I think we can agree that building quality CRUD apps has become much more straightforward in the last several years (which could explain the improved quality of grading apps), but there are many ethical questions around data collection, user-engagement, etc. that extend far beyond basic tooling that existed 20 years ago.
This feels like an extension of the overarching debate around social media in general, which Tristan Harris also criticizes regularly.
[+] [-] donaldknuth123|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jaredtn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ConceptJunkie|7 years ago|reply
First off, by not letting myself get dragged into bad behavior when provoked, which is hard, when it comes to talking about controversial topics, but primarily by focusing on single topic groups that keep a tight rein on topics of discussion... in other words, rules like "No politics or religion, etc." or "We are here because we like "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and not to hate on J.J. Abrams", etc.
Even fandom-based groups can be ugly, but by looking for groups where the focus is on the positive rather than the negative, great discussion and even debate can be had without having things degenerate to YouTube comments level. Some of these groups will even have an "entrance exam" asking you a trivia question or for your opinion on the topic so that you must demonstrate you actually know something about what the group discusses, and aren't just there to throw grenades.
I think this is the way people can make good use of the fact that "everyone" is on Facebook. It allows you to create your own little clubhouse, and as with real clubs, some are good and some are bad, but you can look for the good ones and leave the bad ones behind.
tl;dr On Facebook, private groups can be very beneficial.
[+] [-] robbick|7 years ago|reply
Do the same issues exist in these platforms?
[+] [-] jrowley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NiloCK|7 years ago|reply
It's unclear to me whether confidential communication respecting students using Google products meets our legal obligations, given that I'm in Canada and (as far as I know) Google doesn't have any data centers physically located in Canada...
[+] [-] ocdtrekkie|7 years ago|reply
The student has no choice (and no chance at privacy), because the decision was made for them by a school administrator who was excited about getting $100 laptops in bulk.
It's hard to imagine a more exciting situation to be in if you're Google or Microsoft: You have guaranteed customers who literally are required to buy their products. They're forced to buy in, year after year. And the further the buy-in, the further a school system has invested into Google or Microsoft's education platform, the less ability they have to pivot, since the devices they bought are locked to those platforms, the software they're using is running on those platforms' cloud servers, their curriculum is tied to those platforms, etc.
I think the pox here we need to deal with is vertical integration. We need to put an end to the concept of a single company selling you hardware, providing the software, and locking you in on services.
A fun similar racket is body cams: Taser will give a police department free body cams for every officer, so, you know, nobody has an excuse not to have body cams, as far as the public sees. But those body cams only work with their cloud service (which isn't free), and thanks to the handy fact that evidence has to be retained for many years, Taser can effectively make it impossible to stop subscribing once a department signs up.
[1]The school may or may not purchase it for your student, but you paid for it in your taxes anyways.
[+] [-] z3t4|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mesozoic|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sf101|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] splittingTimes|7 years ago|reply
TL;DR:
Hijack 1: If You Control the Menu, You Control the Choices. Ask yourself: What’s not on the menu?, Why am I being given these options and not others? Do I know the menu provider’s goals? Is this menu empowering for my original need, or are the choices actually a distraction?
Hijack 2: Make apps behave like Slot Machines - give a variable reward. If you want to maximize addictiveness, link a user’s action (like pulling a lever) with a variable reward. You pull a lever and immediately receive either an enticing reward (a match, a prize!) or nothing. Addictiveness is maximized when the rate of reward is most variable.
Hijack 3: Fear of Missing Something Important (FOMSI). If I convince you that I’m a channel for important information, messages, friendships, or potential sexual opportunities — it will be hard for you to turn me off, unsubscribe, or remove your account — because there is a 1% chance you could be missing something important.
Hijack 4: Social Approval. When you get tagged by my friend, you think s/he made a conscious choice to tag you, when actually s/he just responds to Facebook’s suggestion, not making an independent choice. Thus Facebook controls the multiplier for how often millions of people experience their social approval on the line.
Hijack 5: Social Reciprocity (Tit-for-tat). You follow me — it’s rude not to follow you back. When you receive an invitation from someone to connect, you imagine that person making a conscious choice to invite you, when in reality, they likely unconsciously responded to LinkedIn’s list of suggested c ontacts.
Hijack 6: Bottomless bowls, Infinite Feeds, and Autoplay
Hijack 7: Instant Interruption vs. “Respectful” Delivery. Messages that interrupt people immediately are more persuasive at getting people to respond than messages delivered asynchronously.
Hijack 8: Bundling Your Reasons with Their Reasons. When you you want to look up a Facebook event happening tonight (your reason) the Facebook app doesn’t allow you to access it without first landing on the news feed (their reasons), so Facebook converts every reason you have for using it, into their reason which is to maximize the time you spend consuming things. In an ideal world, apps would always give you a direct way to get what you want separately from what they want.
Hijack 9: Inconvenient Choices. Businesses naturally want to make the choices they want you to make easier, and the choices they don’t want you to make harder. NYTimes.com claims to give you “a free choice” to cancel your digital subscription. But instead of just doing it when you hit “Cancel Subscription,” they force you to call a phone number that’s only open at certain times.
Hijack 10: Forecasting Errors, “Foot in the Door” strategies. People don’t intuitively forecast the true time cost of a click when it’s presented to them. Sales people use “foot in the door” techniques by asking for a small innocuous request to begin with (“just one click”), and escalating from there (“why don’t you stay awhile?”). Virtually all engagement websites use this trick.
===
[1] http://www.tristanharris.com/2016/05/how-technology-hijacks-...
[+] [-] mfoy_|7 years ago|reply
This is huge in mobile apps. Loot creates, "packs", etc. which means every end result doesn't have a fixed cost, but an "Expected" cost. I.e. if you want a certain item, you don't know how many times you have to buy a $3 pack to get it. You know you would pay $15 for it, though. So you start pulling that lever, hoping you'll get it. It's gambling, essentially. Literally a slot machines where you put $3 in, pull a lever, and maybe you get nothing good, something okay, or something great.
[+] [-] x3tm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jstewartmobile|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sctb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dest|7 years ago|reply
What if you need to build maps for all the world? What if you want to go to Mars? What if you want to build a payment system?
Small actors could not do that.
[+] [-] ConceptJunkie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghtrytttttnsa|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]