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@BenjaminBHerold | |||||
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1/ I spent the past couple months trying to understand how and why #edtech companies are trying to measure, monitor, and mold students' feelings, mindsets, and ways of thinking. You know what that means...thread incoming. pic.twitter.com/V6yvTunYHN
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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2/ First, let's look at some of the companies & researchers doing this work.
edweek.org/ew/articles/20…
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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3/ Like @AlgebraNationFL. A team of academics, funded by an $8.9m @IESResearch grant, have used the online platform to anonymously collect the clicks and keystrokes of 200,000 Fla. students. The goal: teach the software to pinpoint when kids feel happy, bored, or engaged. pic.twitter.com/h2vKtFUGMr
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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4/ And @PanoramaEd, which has raised $32m in VC. Each year, the company administers online surveys to ~7m students in 8,500 schools. That means a huge central database of kids' responses to questions about #grit, #growthmindset, emotion regulation, social awareness, and more...
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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5/...Panorama also feeds back to districts like @spokaneschools their own info, which is used to help make a variety of decisions. “As we get more & more information from kids, I think we’ll respond to each student better & better,” said Spokane's director of assessment. pic.twitter.com/nd0GYWgSTZ
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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6/ There are also newer companies, like San Francisco-based startup Emote, a recent graduate of the @ycombinator @imaginek12 accelerator. Here's a video explaining the Emote app, which allows school staff to record & share observations of students' feelings in real time. pic.twitter.com/epG15qQCNO
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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7/ “I think this is a really exciting vision of what school can look like,” Emote CEO Julian Golder said. “There’s more interest than we can handle at this point.”
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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8/ And then there's a dizzying array of emerging technologies...like @mursionlearn, which is starting to work with public schools to use its virtual reality simulations for things like helping autistic students develop social-emotional skills .mursion.com/download/14006…
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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9/ Or the FOCI--a wearable that clips to the waistband, tracks your breathing, and tells when you're focused or stressed. The app is billed as a "focus-enhancing mind coach." A press release billed it as a cure for digital distractions in the classroom. fociai.com
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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10/ And researchers like Sidney D'Mello & his team at the Emotive Computing Lab are doing cutting-edge work w/ eye-trackers, facial expression scanning, machine learning, and "intelligent tutors." sites.google.com/site/sidneydme…
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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11/ What does it all mean? @JIMSEDU of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is at the fore of efforts to make sense of this new landscape...
blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Digital…
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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12/ ...Shelton said kids' growth/learning encompasses physical, mental-health, identity, cognitive, social-emotional, & academic development.
“Unless you understand how they are relating to each other, it is very difficult to optimize any of them.”
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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13/ But Shelton and others also acknowledge it's an open question whether #edtech can reliably measure any #SEL skiills...an issue explored in-depth in this must-read piece by my colleague @EvieBlad.
edweek.org/ew/articles/20…
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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14/ And critics like @jane_jrobbins of @approject take a broader view, raising concerns re: privacy & liberty.
“The idea of telling children that even their feelings are not private & that we’re going to constantly surveil them & analyze them, is just un-American,” she said.
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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15/ University of Stirling lecturer @BenPatrickWill also raised the specter of Facebook/Cambridge Analytica-style behavior modification, targeted at students pic.twitter.com/5SeJEGVA3v
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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16/ Add it all up, and K-12 is walking a tightrope, ably summed up by Jeremy Taylor, the director of assessment at @caselorg...
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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17/ “#SEL is really about building relationships & communities,” Taylor said. “We hope ed tech can support that, but we have to make sure things are done in a way that is responsible and not outpacing people’s comfort with what is happening in their schools,”
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Benjamin Herold
@BenjaminBHerold
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Jun 13 |
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18/ fin pic.twitter.com/LmaOsgupyh
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Joseph Jerome
@joejerome
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Jun 13 |
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Bravo! Great story.
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rif, dumped plumper
@politiquestions
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Jun 13 |
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I wish they'd use it to teach everyone else to leave us alone.
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