How Silicon Valley Invaded American Schools
For the last few months I've been working on a story for More Perfect Union about how Google marketed the Chromebook as the future of the classroom, their motivations for doing so, and what the impact of personal devices has been on students.
Over the course of a few months I interviewed dozens of thoughtful parents, teachers, district IT employees, researchers, experts, and more, and worked with a team including host Sarah Adams, video editor Katherine Welsh, and some very talented videographers in three different countries. There's a very interesting story to be told about the history of tech companies' marketing to schools and policymakers; this video is much more narrowly focused, but I'm proud of how it came out. The reporting process for this also turned me into a Luddite.
Let me know what you think! And if you're interested in learning more about personalized learning and tech, I recommend:
- Audrey Watters' work.
- Screen Schooled, by Joe Clement and Matt Miles
- Scrolling 2 Death
- The National Education Policy Center's report on AI
- Natasha Singer, "How Google Took Over the Classroom"
- Jonathan Haidt's blog
- Emily Cherkin
