Can Education Technology Finally Deliver? A JOINT PUBLICATION Not All That Glitters Is Gold Can Education Technology Finally Deliver? Arran Hamilton | John Hattie A JOINT PUBLICATION FOR INFORMATION: Copyright © 2021 by Corwin © 2021 Corwin Press, Inc. Visible Learning® and Visible Learning+™ are registered Corwin trademarks of Corwin Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. A SAGE Company copyright law, no part of this work may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by 2455 Teller Road any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without permission in writing Thousand Oaks, California 91320 from an authorized representative of Corwin Press, Inc. (800) 233-9936 When forms and sample documents appearing in this work are intended for www.corwin.com reproduction, they will be marked as such. Reproduction of their use is authorized for educational use by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit SAGE Publications Ltd. entities that have purchased the book. 1 Oliver’s Yard All third-party trademarks referenced or depicted herein are included solely for the 55 City Road purpose of illustration and are the property of their respective owners. Reference to London EC1Y 1SP these trademarks in no way indicates any relationship with, or endorsement by, the United Kingdom trademark owner. ISBN 978-1-0718-1999-9 (web PDF) SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 India SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. 18 Cross Street #10-10/11/12 China Square Central Singapore 048423 Acquisitions Editor: Ariel Curry Editorial Assistant: Eliza Erickson Production Editor: Laureen Gleason Copy Editor: Sarah J. Duffy Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd. Proofreader: Liann Lech Graphic Designer: Lysa Becker Marketing Manager: Kerry Garagliano DISCLAIMER: This paper may direct you to access third-party content via web links, QR codes, or other scannable technologies, which are provided for your reference by the author(s). Corwin makes no guarantee that such third-party content will be available for your use and encourages you to review the terms and conditions of such third-party content. Corwin takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for your use of any third-party content, nor does Corwin approve, sponsor, endorse, verify, or certify such third-party content. Contents About VISIBLE LEARNING® iv About Corwin iv About the Authors v Acknowledgments v Introduction 1 1. The World of Yesterday 3 2. The World of Today 6 Digital Technology Is Everywhere 6 Evidence of Deep Impact Is (Almost) Nowhere 6 Can We Completely Trust the Research on Education Technology, and What Should We Do With It? 11 3. The World of Tomorrow 15 Immersive Virtual Meetings and Virtual Schools 16 Biofeedback Dashboards for Educators 17 The Rise of Robo-Coaching? 17 Next-Generation Intelligent Tutoring Systems 19 The End of Foreign Language Learning? 20 4. The World of the Day After 23 Genetic Engineering 23 Brain–Computer Interfaces 24 Assessing the Wider Impact of Technology on Society and Education 24 5. Conclusion 26 Appendix: 60 Years of Research on the Impact of Electronic Technology on Learner Outcomes 28 References 43 About VISIBLE LEARNING® In 2008, Professor John Hattie published Visible Learning, a synthesis of more than 800 meta-studies covering more than 80 million students. The book revealed which education variables have the biggest impact on learning and created a new mindset that has swept educators around the world. Applying the Visible Learning® methodology means that students are taught to know what they need to learn, how to learn it, and how to evaluate their own progress. Using the Visible Learning approach, teachers become evaluators of their own impact on student learning. The combination causes students to drive their own learning. Since 2008, Professor Hattie has teamed with highly influential educators to expand the Visible Learning canon with books, including Visible Learning Into Action, Visible Learning for Teachers, Visible Learning for Mathematics, and Visible Learning for Literacy. Visible Learning+™ is the model of professional learning that takes the theory of Professor Hattie’s research and puts it into a practical inquiry model for teachers and school leaders to ask questions of themselves about the impact they are having on student achievement. Visible Learning+ is a result of the collaboration between Professor Hattie and Corwin to help educators translate the Visible Learning research. Through a global network of partners, Visible Learning+ professional learning is implemented in over 20 countries in North America, Europe, and the Pacific. Learn more at www.visiblelearningplus.com About Corwin Corwin, a SAGE Publishing company, was established in 1990, first as a professional book publisher, now as a full-service professional learning company, offering professional development solutions on the top- ics that matter most and the delivery methods that work best to achieve a school or district’s objectives. Its many resources range from a library of over 4,000 books to on-site consulting to online courses and events. At the heart of every professional learning experience is the book content and author expertise that have made Corwin the most trusted name in professional development. Learn more at www.corwin.com iv About the Authors Dr. Arran Hamilton is group director of education at Cognition Education. His early career included teaching and research at Warwick University and a period in adult and community education. Dr. Hamilton transitioned into educational consultancy more than 15 years ago and has held senior positions at Cambridge Assessment, Nord Anglia Education, Education Development Trust (formerly CfBT), and the British Council. Much of this work was international and has focused on supporting Ministries of Education and corporate funders to improve learner outcomes. He currently oversees the design and delivery of Cognition Education’s portfolio of education improvement programs, with live projects in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. Professor John Hattie is Laureate Professor at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne and chair of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. His areas of interest are measurement models and their applications to education’s problems, and models of teaching and learning. He has published and presented over 1,000 papers, supervised 200 thesis students, and published 31 books, including 18 on understanding and applying the Visible Learning® research. Acknowledgments We would like to thank Shaun Hawthorne and Christophe Mullings from Cognition Education, Ariel Curry from Corwin, and the eight anonymous reviewers who provided feedback on an earlier draft of this manu- script. Any remaining errors or omissions are entirely our own. v Introduction When we were both children, we enjoyed read- the little boy is right but is too embarrassed to ing the works of Hans Christian Andersen, and our admit it. He continues the procession, and his offi- mutual favorite is the story of The Emperor’s New cials make even greater effort to bear the weight of Clothes. Published in 1837, it tells the now-familiar his nonexistent golden train. tale of a fashion-conscious emperor who changed his outfits by the hour. Enter stage left, two “weav- Since its publication 183 years ago, the story of the ers” who promise to construct for the emperor the emperor’s new clothes has often been used as a most exquisite garment imaginable from golden metaphor to describe any fiction that people have thread. But there is one catch: the outfit will remain been induced to think of as fact. Sometimes, like utterly invisible to anyone not worthy of their cur- the story, the golden threads that people are asked rent job or of simple mind. to admire do not actually exist; instead, the audi- ence is manipulated into believing they do, through The weavers, duly commissioned, then set out to do psychological gaslighting. More commonly, the absolutely nothing. They sit in their weaving cham- thing exists and even glistens, but isn’t made of the ber, likely passing the hours with endless rounds of 24-carat bullion that the weavers claim it to be. In cribbage and charades. Whenever anyone checks other words, it glitters but isn’t gold. on their progress, they rush to their looms, miming the action of weaving but, of course, without any In this paper we explore whether education tech- actual cloth or golden yarn. nology also fits that second definition. EdTech is real and tangible, unlike the emperor’s new (and When the emperor sends his wisest official to invisible) clothes. You can see it, touch it, and use it. inspect the cloth, the latter is left in a quandary. But we ask whether its impact is a fiction masquer- He can see absolutely nothing, but to admit it is ading as a fact, or pyrite professing to be gold. And a declaration that he is unfit for office. So he duly in the world of COVID-19, where schools across admires the cut of the (nonexistent) cloth and the the planet have closed or are operating at reduced array of textures and the golden stitching, report- hours, this is an even more important question: ing as much back to the emperor. On fitting day, because technology is fast becoming the only the emperor, too, can see absolutely nothing. But game in town. Whatever the potential limitations, facing the same dilemma as his wise official, he virtual schooling is clearly better than no schooling. goes through the motions of being dressed in the Even before COVID-19, the perception from teach- golden “outfit” and confers the “weavers” with ers, students, and parents was often that education honors for a job well done. technology is game-changing and transformative to Act 2, and the emperor parades through the streets student learning (Abrami et al., 2006).