Been thinking about @audreywatters announcement that she's moving away from chronicling ed tech @hackeducation, at least partly due to the frustration over not being listened to. As Audrey says, what's the point of repeating oneself if nothing changes? hackeducation.com/2018/12/18/top… 
If you've been reading @audreywatters over the years, you know how right she is and has been. Every ed tech "solution" being touted today has been in the works for decades in barely different guises. How many times should she have to repeat herself before someone listens?
This thinking brought me to @rickhess99's recent piece expressing concern over wether or not ed reformer groups are truly listening, having been chastened by failure. If someone historically on the reform side is worried, you know the non-listening is happening. But why?
A lot of reasons. Audrey is un-institutioned. Her message is critical of corporate and business "solutions" to issues in education. She is a woman, and the ed reform and ed tech spaces are almost entirely dominated by men who hold a fraction of her knowledge. That's threatening.
I think also that they don't want to listen for reasons similar to @rickhess99's worries. These ed tech entrepreneur men will have to admit that not only have they been wrong, but they've been really really wrong, like fundamentally misguided. Instead, they're allowed to "pivot."
EdX had more news yesterday about their latest "pivot." They were going to put traditional higher ed out of business, but despite hundreds of millions of $'s in funding, cannot produce a product that anyone really wants and definitely doesn't want to pay for. They're a failure.
Audrey Watters was one of the people who was telling the world that MOOCs were not going to live up to the hype. She knew because she knows her shit, knows her history, and unlike the boosters, she does the work. But no, not someone to be listened to, apparently.
What's happened to @hackeducation is part of a much larger pattern. There are people who know what works, or what is going to work in education, but they are not listened to because they do not have a message that is monetizable as an education product to be sold into a market.
I'm bumping up against this right now with my message about teaching writing. I'm asked what's the most important thing we could do and I say, "Halve the number of students teachers are responsible for," but it's a non-starter. They'd rather invest millions in B.S. ed tech.
In @audreywatters words, "Some people think it’s hilarious that I’m ed-tech’s Cassandra, but it’s not funny at all. It’s depressing, and it’s painful. And no one fucking listens." Cassandra was fucking right! Audrey has been right over and over again. hackeducation.com/2018/12/18/top…
I don't have a conclusion to this rant, but for the education reform crowd, there's lots of voices you should be listening to, and @audreywatters has been giving you plenty to digest for years.
How about some specific shout-outs of @audreywatters pieces for the non-listening ed reform crowd. Here she is in 2013 on the "zombie ideas" of ed tech. Personalized learning is this year's zombie idea, yet it's getting 100's of millions in investment. 2013trends.hackeducation.com/zombies
Read that story in the Times about FB giving corps access to private messages? What do you think ed tech companies are up to harvesting data about children? In less than 2 years this will be a big expose, but remember, it's already known. 2017trends.hackeducation.com/data.html
Bottom line, there's no money in being the person who tells people their plans to monetize education products that their products are dangerous, immoral, nonsensical, counterproductive, or worse, and the people selling the products have all the power. Why would they ever listen?
If there's someone out there who really does care about education, who is not invested in looking at education through the lens of markets and wants to promote understanding based in history and data, fund @audreywatters and publicize her work. It would be a great investment.
Here's a nice tag to illustrate how money and markets rule in education while ideas and values are shunted to the side. Rich guy works system to open charter for fewer than 30 students, drains public system of money in the process. curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2018/12/ok-ano…
