It seems like the author is taking a specific subset of ed-tech ("online learning companies that rely on the student's intrinsic motivation") and trying to generalize it to all ed-tech.
There are TONS of different companies doing some really interested stuff in ed-tech. Not only are there lots of ed-tech companies that aren't online learning companies, there are a lot of online learning companies that DON'T rely on a student's intrinsic motivation: e.g. anything in the K12 space - there are a lot of K12 schools that are beginning to incorporate online learning into their curriculum, and then there's plenty of extrinsic (e.g. grade-based) motivation to do well and perform.
I think my #1 takeaway from this is that the author isn't the target market for most of these ed-tech companies. They're not trying to get people to take these classes for fun, no more than colleges want people to take classes for fun.
I'm definitely aware that there are tons of companies doing amazing things. But I think that people are confusing tools for communication with tools for education, and that the distinction is unfortunately larger than the landscape suggests.
Great point about incorporating behavior though - technology that molds and aids existent behavior is always needed!
Comments
It seems like the author is taking a specific subset of ed-tech ("online learning companies that rely on the student's intrinsic motivation") and trying to generalize it to all ed-tech.
There are TONS of different companies doing some really interested stuff in ed-tech. Not only are there lots of ed-tech companies that aren't online learning companies, there are a lot of online learning companies that DON'T rely on a student's intrinsic motivation: e.g. anything in the K12 space - there are a lot of K12 schools that are beginning to incorporate online learning into their curriculum, and then there's plenty of extrinsic (e.g. grade-based) motivation to do well and perform.
I think my #1 takeaway from this is that the author isn't the target market for most of these ed-tech companies. They're not trying to get people to take these classes for fun, no more than colleges want people to take classes for fun.
I'm definitely aware that there are tons of companies doing amazing things. But I think that people are confusing tools for communication with tools for education, and that the distinction is unfortunately larger than the landscape suggests.
Great point about incorporating behavior though - technology that molds and aids existent behavior is always needed!