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my own as much as anybody else's

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proliferation of experts or dilution of expertise?
distributed = unlocateable, unaccountable, just-out-of-graspable???

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Isn't it better to have a strong network of come-to-be-trusted individuals with a variety of opinions and range of knowledge rather than submit to a transmission-style of education from a teacher (single point of failure?) promulgating hegemonic values?

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The Mooc, the teacher, the disappearing teacher, the machine, the autodidact

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The Mooc, the teacher, the disappearing teacher, the machine, the autodidact

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This article discusses the merits of the living, breathing teacher and an automated version, and the author appears resigned to opting for a mix of  both ...

From teacher as "understanding the nuances of his or her [pupil's] academic skills, to building positive relationships and crafting learning experiences based on more than numerical reading scores"

to Personalised Learning
"sterile approach to messy, complex classroom processes. And there’s also big money at stake for education-technology companies and curriculum publishers who are taking advantage of pressure to increase academic achievement."

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A veteran educator reflects on the personalized-learning trend that's left him wondering if a computer is more capable of doing his job than he is.

Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Leaving my school building the other day, I had an unexpected realization: Perhaps a computer was a more effective teacher than I currently was. The thought unnerved me, and still does as I'm writing this. I'm a nearly 13-year veteran educator dedicated to reflecting upon and refining my teaching craft. But I'm now considering the real possibility that, for at least part of a class period or school day, a computer could-and maybe should-replace me.

For the past several weeks, I've begun class with a simple routine: Students enter the room, grab a new Chromebook, log on to the Reading Plus program, and spend roughly 20 minutes working at their own pace. I stroll around the room and help with technology troubleshooting or conference with students, quietly chatting about academic progress or missing work. I've also found myself pausing, marveling at what this program promises to accomplish: meeting students where they are academically and, at least in theory, helping a wildly diverse group of students improve their literacy skills.

Developments in education technology promise to assist teachers and school systems in supporting struggling students by providing individualized instruction. But at what cost? As a teacher, it's difficult to adapt to and embrace a machine that-at least for part of the time-takes over for me. The processes of teaching and learning are complex and innately human; I value the time I take to develop relationships with my students. But it's hard not to wonder if that time could better be spent with adaptive learning technology.

My third-period sophomore English class at Fern Creek High School in Louisville, Kentucky, contains a wonderful mix of students hailing from the neighborhood and around the globe-my students represent Jordan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Russia, and Mexico. I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know how students arrived in our classroom in addition to hearing about their hopes, fears, and dreams. With this diversity also comes a huge range of student ability. Computerized reading assessments and other benchmarked tests reveal that roughly 90 percent of my class is behind grade level in reading.

About half of those students are at least four grade levels behind. My own anecdotal observations support this challenging reality as well. And across the country, only 34 percent of eighth-graders scored proficient or above in reading in 2015 according to the Nation's Report Card. School districts' attempts to improve literacy achievement are pervasive, and our school administration's mandate to employ Reading Plus in most of our freshman and sophomore English classes reflects this.

I'd love to be able to provide individual instruction to my third-period class. One problem-and it's a big one-is that I don't know how to teach reading to students who are either new to the language or far behind grade level. And I know I'm hardly alone as a high-school English teacher in this tenuous position. I've earned an undergraduate degree in American literature, a master's in teaching, and master's in English literature. Yet these credentials haven't equipped me with the necessary background or skills to significantly improve my students' reading ability. I'm not trained as a reading specialist. Even if I were, how could I possibly create 27 customized lessons? Maybe Reading Plus can do some of what I can't.

During the independent, silent work periods at the start of my class, the program adapts to students' reading speed and comprehension ability, creating a customized scrolling illumination-imagine a rectangular flashlight beam only highlighting the text your eyes scan. Many students seem to embrace this moving target; at the least, they are more physically engaged with reading than ever before, and the program seems to be motivating a clear majority of students.

Reading Plus is emblematic of a growing trend toward personalized learning in public education; it's the idea that schools can better serve students by providing more customized instruction. The term personalized learning refers to a vast array of approaches to education; examples include a high school in Deer Isle, Maine, and its radical curriculum overhaul to meet needs of individual learners in more creative ways, as well as San Diego's High Tech High, where student-designed, long-term passion projects are paramount to the learning process.

Personalized learning, however, often manifests itself in school districts in less dynamic ways than in Maine and at High Tech High. The initiatives often become software or technology-based, with digital "instruction" adjusting based on competency levels or skills of its student users. It's not about student passion or authentic projects-it's all about remediating and measuring specific academic skills.

And as I've experienced first-hand, the role of teachers shifts dramatically with the adoption of these adaptive programs. Instead of a teacher striving to know a student on multiple levels-from understanding the nuances of his or her academic skills, to building positive relationships and crafting learning experiences based on more than numerical reading scores-educators are on the sidelines while a machine takes over. Personalized learning often becomes inherently impersonal; it's a sterile approach to messy, complex classroom processes. And there's also big money at stake for education-technology companies and curriculum publishers who are taking advantage of pressure to increase academic achievement.

According to this 2014 Education Week report, the Federal Department of Education Race to the Top competition awarded 16 school districts $350 million dollars to support efforts to personalize learning, often including adaptive software and digital tools as part of their plans.

For example, Miami-Dade Public Schools' plan included buying access to Carnegie Learning's Mathia, a program that "tutors" middle-school students in math. Carson City, Nevada's, school system included a plan to incorporate MasteryConnect, which, according to report, is updated in real time as students take assessments, looking at mastery of learning targets (or specific academic skills). I wonder if educators in these locales are feeling as conflicted as I am.

Critics of the software-driven personalized-learning trend, including the author Alfie Kohn and FairTest, an organization dedicated to curtailing misuses and flaws of standardized testing, contend that there are significant problems with this approach. Kohn laments school districts' focus on improving test scores as a catalyst in software adoption. One of the issues addressed in this FairTest post is that "frequent online student assessments require teachers to review copious amounts of data instead of teaching, observing and relating to students." I agree with both of these criticisms, particularly the idea of losing more opportunities for human interaction in favor of customized screen time.

In 2014, I wrote a piece for The Atlantic titled "My Students Don't Know How to Have a Conversation," arguing that students' reliance on screen time is detracting from their ability to communicate verbally. And now school systems are adopting programs designed to keep students glued to yet another screen for reading practice, which, by design, is a closed system. With Reading Plus, students do not have the shared experience and discussions after reading the same text, like when we analyze Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron" or The Color Purple together. It's all individualized, silent work. While we are still a community of learners, it feels less dynamic, even if students are making incremental reading gains according to the program.

For struggling readers and writers, it's understandable that teachers, schools, and systems are striving to do whatever it takes to improve literacy levels. But whether struggling students are better off graduating from high school having been remediated by personalized-learning software versus more dynamic learning experiences, even if their reading skills marginally improve, remains an open question. I'm hopeful that this blended approach to teaching and learning-the combination of using technology-assisted activity and more traditional face-to-face methods-will be useful for my students. And I wasn't always open to this possibility.

When I first read Michael Godsey's essay for The Atlantic, "The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher," a few years ago, I scoffed at the idea of teachers being replaced by classroom technology facilitators. Godsey writes, "The 'virtual class' will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country's best teachers (a.k.a. a 'super-teacher'), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record."

In Godsey's vision, those who currently serve as classroom teachers-like myself-would be replaced or forced to make radical changes in becoming a facilitator instead. Yet in the world of software-driven personalized learning, Godsey's "super-teacher" isn't even needed-only folks who can keep students behaved and on-task. I've reread the piece and agree with some of it's conclusions: There's no doubt the role of teachers is changing rapidly in many school districts towards more facilitation. Like Godsey, I'd struggle to tell a young teacher in training what to expect in the coming years-but there's no doubt that blended learning will only increase in popularity. For now, I'm okay with my changing role, and it's too early to tell if Reading Plus is worth the time and students' effort.

As I write my lesson plans for next week, I chunk out the daily time needed for students to engage with their personalized learning. I tell myself I'm still needed for the 45 minutes they aren't tracking the illuminated scrolling target. I can still do my best to impart a love of writing, attempt to spark passions, encourage curiosity, foster discussions, smile, laugh, and interact with the students in ways a screen can't, even if Reading Plus "knows" more technical information about their reading levels than I ever could.

We want to hear what you think. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Paul Barnwell is a teacher, writer, and urban gardener based in Louisville, KY.

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A veteran educator reflects on the personalized-learning trend that's left him wondering if a computer is more capable of doing his job than he is. Leaving my school building the other day, I had an unexpected realization: Perhaps a computer was a more effective teacher than I currently was.

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What if I am remixing and repurposing my misconceptions?

(and am I doing exactly that now?!)

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The author reasserts her contention without entirely convincing me of it.

She seems to be persuaded that the combination of the reach and openness of moocs somehow communicates an ethos without regard to the individual within the massive.

What about students who are not adept at artistic re-imaginings of the course material (regardless of whether they understand it)?

What about the tech-timid or lurkers who dislike constant social networking?

The internet ingénue (is there such a thing?) might need more guiding and scaffolding than the author supposes.

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Pros

Access to great range of educational materials and teaching on great variety of subjects from organisations worldwide

Exposure to the opinions of others/learning from others

Social, emotional, technical support from fellow students

Expand academic network

Sharing resources, ideas and connections

Student in charge of own learning (flexibility, motivated self-regulators do well)

Students working things out for themselves a la critical pedagogy

Cons

Inequalities of access and open

Unsure of the expertise of others

Dilution of expert knowledge

Misunderstandings not corrected, perhaps even compounded

Intimidated by overwhelming amount of material to evaluate

Student in charge of own learning (find it hard to self-motivate and regulate)

Students struggling to work things out for themselves

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Repurposing - is this a postmodern technological method of regurgitation?

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"The role of educators in this world is to facilitate dialogue and support students in their understanding of resources" Stewart, quoting Weller.

I think students require regular and targeted helpful advice, criticism and calibration provided by a committed teacher.

I tweeted "is it wrong to want the sage back on the (on or offline) stage?" and got these great responses (calibrations!) from  my coursemates.

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"the ethos of new literacies is being spread at a massive scale"

Do high numbers of connectivist mooc-takers correlate to a increase in digitally literate and 'well-educated' students?

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A large-scale study of Twitter Use in MOOCs

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Researchers have proposed that social media might offer many benefits to Massive Open Online Courses. Yet such claims are supported by little empirical evidence. The existing research exploring the use of social media in MOOCs has been conducted with individual courses and convenience samples, making it difficult to know to what extent research results are generalizable.

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Stewart contends that Moocs "may serve as a Trojan horse for the sociocultural development of participatory perspectives and literacies".

I think the author makes an unaccounted-for-jump between exposure to participatory practices and an individual's ability to become "literate" in the way she describes.

The author seems to applaud a viral-like exposure to an ethos which delivers  proficiency by osmosis or infection.