Do one to one initiatives threaten public education

One to one classroom agendas have a dark side that includes the destruction of public schools as we know them; where teachers and students interact. It’s a dystopian ideology that posits students earning education badges while working in isolation at a digital screen.

Source: One to One Initiative Threatens Public Education | tultican

A very smartly written article that unfortunately goes off the rails. Equating 1-to-1 programs as means for competency based education (CBE) is the wrong approach. Since I’ve been in education, there have always been standards for what needs to be taught. These standards, for the most part, are the competencies that the students need to learn.

Educational technology is there to give students a chance to experience or take part in work that is very much impossible to do in the classroom without. But, the author is correct that CBE or outcome based education, or teaching standards is not the right approach when these skills are being taught in isolation.

Project based learning brings these outcomes together as a more cohesive whole, allowing the students to see how the individual skills work together.