"There has been a shift in American business culture-our
children are now seen as an economic resource to be mined or exploited, like bauxite."
-Gary Ruskin, quoted in The Child and the Machine: How computers put our children's education at risk, Alison Armstrong and Charles Casement, 2000, page 127.Bienkowski, M., Feng, M., & Means, B. (2012).
Enhancing teaching and learning through educational data mining and learning analytics: An issue brief. US Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, 1-57.
Ogor, E. N. (2007, September).
Student academic performance monitoring and
evaluation using data mining techniques. In Electronics, Robotics and Automotive Mechanics Conference, 2007. CERMA 2007 (pp. 354-359). IEEE.
Assessment as a dynamic process produces data that reasonable conclusions are derived by stakeholders for decision making that expectedly impact on students' learning outcomes. The data mining methodology while extracting useful, valid patterns from higher education database environment contribute to proactively ensuring students maximize their academic output. This paper develops a methodology by the derivation of performance prediction indicators to deploying a simple student performance assessment and monitoring system within a teaching and learning environment by mainly focusing on performance monitoring of students' continuous assessment (tests) and examination scores in order to predict their final achievement status upon graduation. Based on various data mining techniques (DMT) and the application of machine learning processes, rules are derived that enable the classification of students in their predicted classes. The deployment of the prototyped solution, integrates measuring, 'recycling' and reporting procedures in the new system to optimize prediction accuracy.“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people.
As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
-Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf“Education is still the key to eliminating gender inequities, to reducing poverty, to creating a sustainable planet, and to fostering peace...
it can only be achieved by creating a strong cradle-to-career continuum that starts with early childhood learning and extends all the way to college and careers...Today, education is a global public good unconstrained by national boundaries...It is no surprise that economic interdependence brings new global challenges and educational demands.”
-Arne Duncan, Obama’s Education Secretary, Speaking to UNESCO in late 2010.Todd Oppenheimer,
The Computer Delusion, The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997, Volume 280, No. 1, pages 45-62.
There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning, yet school districts are cutting programs -- music, art, physical education -- that enrich children's lives to make room for this dubious nostrum, and the Clinton Administration has embraced the goal of "computers in every classroom" with credulous and costly enthusiasm...
The promoters of computers in schools again offer prodigious research showing improved academic achievement after using their technology. The research has again come under occasional attack, but this time quite a number of teachers seem to be backing classroom technology. In a poll taken early last year U.S. teachers ranked computer skills and media technology as more "essential" than the study of European history, biology, chemistry, and physics; than dealing with social problems such as drugs and family breakdown; than learning practical job skills; and than reading modern American writers such as Steinbeck and Hemingway or classic ones such as Plato and Shakespeare...
Five main arguments underlie the campaign to computerize our nation's schools.
-Computers improve both teaching practices and student achievement.
-Computer literacy should be taught as early as possible; otherwise students will be left behind.
-To make tomorrow's work force competitive in an increasingly high-tech world, learning computer skills must be a priority.
-Technology programs leverage support from the business community -- badly needed today because schools are increasingly starved for funds.
-Work with computers -- particularly using the Internet -- brings students valuable connections with teachers, other schools and students, and a wide network of professionals around the globe. These connections spice the school day with a sense of real-world relevance, and broaden the educational community...
With such a discouraging record of student and teacher performance with computers, why has the Clinton Administration focused so narrowly on the hopeful side of the story? Part of the answer may lie in the makeup of the Administration's technology task force. Judging from accounts of the task force's deliberations, all thirty-six members are unequivocal technology advocates. Two thirds of them work in the high-tech and entertainment industries...
When I spoke with Esther Dyson and other task-force members about what discussion the group had had about the potential downside of computerized education, they said there hadn't been any....
When I asked Dyson why the Clinton task force proceeded with such fervor, despite the classroom computer's shortcomings, she said, "It's so clear the world is changing.""Rather than just meeting the needs of industry, these initiatives constitute a massive state intervention in socialization,
a new science of youth in which notions of work preparation and life management are united, an attempt to technologize previous cultural patterns that are regarded as either inadequate or no longer produced naturally. As such, this constitutes a stategy which requires situating in the context of other control measures aimed at youth. We want to look at two aspects of the new pedagogy in particular: first profiling and assessment; and then the question of skills and competences. Profiling is at the core of panoptic discipline.
It is central to that process whereby ever widening aspects of student life and identity are brought within scrutiny and the possibility is created for even stronger forms of social control and the
pedagogic colonization of everyday life."
-Kevin Robins and Frank Webster, The Technical Fix: Education, computers and industry, 1989, page 218.Sloan, D. (1985).
The computer in education: A critical perspective. New York: Teachers College Press.
"The world is changing at a much faster pace today than one would have imagined a decade ago. The way innovations of yesteryears like internet and mobility transformed the world today; innovations of today would go on to transform the world tomorrow. In the words of William Wordsworth, ‘The child is father of man’. Quite rightly, the shape of future lies in the hands of today’s youth.
The responsibility to shape young minds and prepare them for a new world rests on Education. The world needs to renounce some age old practices in its education system and adopt a futuristic pedagogy.
Core has been incubating innovations that are transforming the Education Systems worldwide – from the US to the UK; from India to the Middle East and Africa.
With innovative interventions across Teaching, Learning, Assessment and Governance, the company is rigorously at work. Innovating today what will lead to a transformed world tomorrow.
The global agenda of the 21st century is set around economy and trade, with manufacturing shifting from the west to the east, employment landscape would immensely change at both ends. In order to sustain their economic growth, developed as well as developing economies need to intensify their human capital formation. Not surprising then, nations across the world are increasingly investing in education for continued
development of their human capital, quantitatively as well as qualitatively.
With governments across the world stepping up their spends on reinventing their education system in line with the unfolding realities of 21st century,
CORE is uniquely poised to leverage its established and fast improving domain prowess. In doing so, it would help nations enhance the productive capabilities of their future workforce and create immense value for all its stakeholders over coming decades.”
-CORE Education & Consulting Solutions, Inc. (CORE-ECS), CORE – Innovating To Transform The World, 2012 Annual Financial Report, page 3.(Grammatical errors included.)
Schneider M,
A Brief Audit of Bill Gates' Common Core Spending, Huffington Post, August 29, 2013.
"Enterprise Computing Services (ECS), an IT company based in Woodstock, Georgia, was founded by our CEO Shekhar Iyer in 1992.
In 2005, ECS was acquired by CORE Education and Technologies, Limited (CORE-ETL), headquartered in Mumbai, India, and was re-named CORE Education & Consulting Solutions, Inc., as the US arm of the global education company...CORE Education & Consulting Solutions, Inc. (CORE-ECS) is an end-to-end, education-focused, technology-enabled solutions provider.
Working with schools, districts and statewide agencies, CORE ECS delivers K-12 assessment and intervention solutions, technology infrastructure, special education management, pre-k management applications and strategic staffing solutions. CORE ECS currently touches the lives of over 2,500,000 learners and 150,000 educators across the United States, advancing education through an integrated mosaic of innovative solutions. CORE ECS was established based on the idea that customized, tailored content and “high touch” services - combined with effective, useful reporting and technology - have the power to transform education in the 21st century."
-CORE Education & Consulting Solutions, Inc. (CORE-ECS).
Shechtman, N., DeBarger,
A., Dornsife, C., Rosier, S., & Yarnall, L. (2013). Promoting grit,
tenacity, and perseverance: Critical factors for success in the 21st
century.
"The idea of measuring the progress of millions of individual students by subjecting them to standardized tests is absurd. This does not measure the progress made by the student; it measures the progress made by the system. Our schools are really factories of mass production where the object isn't to educate and inform, but to produce a homogenous culture of non-thinking conformists and consumers. The finished product is like a fast food hamburger from McDonald's. It's uniformly the same no matter where you buy it from."
-Charles Sullivan
