Technolandy

Day 70 (of 2025/26) what if AI and personal screens aren’t just making ‘things’ harder… what if they are shining a light on a system in need of… a rethink, not a repair? #tEChursdAI

https://apple.news/AhuOtSbPXQ2yG5pwFuONVfg it’s a feature, not a glitch!

We are using screens as a distraction from some of the more root issues of education… kind of like mental health, we are not focusing on the right thing when we are worried about learning loss, distractions, etc…

Love how the article points out that things like mundane essays have long been ‘broken’ with the teaching of formulaic essays and dehumanized ‘tasks’ being elements of a problem teaching and learning long before screens and AI. It’s not like cheating, distractions, anxiety, depression etc are new to education post 2010… but more that it is now mainstream, and not exclusive to the elite students who could afford elusive tech (now accessible by most/all) and could afford to be caught (my parents a lawyer…) with their family legacy sparing them the same consequences that would be issued to someone without such privilege.

Do we really want education to be focused on reinforcing the industrial model of: mass lectures (direct instruction) leading to following recipe cards (essays, labs with predicted outcomes or Fs), standardized prompts/responses (often focused on short term memory recall)… which are all things AI can do better… so maybe we look at how “hollow that model” has become and reconsider how we ask students to learn and show their knowing.

This gives us more time to focus on (double down in the article) on literacies – reading, writing, mathing, researching, speaking, thinking (critically and creatively) and memorize that which has great value to the learner (not everyone needs to know the name of all 206 bones in the human body, but some do…)

Sidebar: We are worried about AI when news media is really controlled by 6 companies – 57 channels and one thing on (it’s a Bruce Springsteen song reference)

Love the encouragement to leverage AI so that we can rebuild around that which machines can’t replicate – seminars, inquiry, deep questions, slow reading (get rid of the stopwatch, even when wanting to compare ‘fluency speed’), unpacking ethics… data fluency, historical reasoning, creative problem-solving… redesign, not defend, the future of learning. That’s a great quote.

I know that many of my colleagues will start dialogues with “I know you like screens Landy, but…” (and my History 365 teacher had a stark lesson for us when reading/listening: disregard anything before the ‘but’ – that is the key word and the real point is what follows)…

Often some share about how amazing it is to not be with tech and to not have students use tech; to which I point out my glasses and re-wonder if these should be taken away too, since equity and adaptations need to be more comfortable for some, and not about actual… equity. Screens have been the single greatest equalizer to learners. Do they innately know how to best use/leverage it? Nope – they don’ have the same skillset at home to learn from… a few of us were privileged enough to have parents (and do so ourselves) share, talk, and model how tech can be used responsibly and how the power of the devices can leverage equity in learning – for me it was typing instead of losing marks for ‘neatness’, for my kids, it was knowing they could do different, but still leverage the learning into getting through he game-of-school boardgame.

I occasionally hear about wishes for the ‘before times’, but I really the pre-screen times also having debates and arguments about engagement, relevance, depression, anxiety, mental wellness… the topics we should be focusing on and considering how/if the screens may be able to help with some of these… I know it won’t be for ‘all’, but nothing is – not even my preferred Project Based Learning approach…

Maybe that’s what unsettles us most: AI and screens aren’t breaking anything new… they’re exposing what’s been cracked for decades. They’re making it impossible to pretend the industrial model is “fine,” or that rigor equals memorizing disconnected facts on command. So instead of doubling down on the stopwatch, the recipe card, the formula, maybe the real work is to sit with the discomfort and let it push us toward something better. Not a repair job. A rethinking. A redesign. And maybe that’s the real challenge of our time in education — to not look away from what the mirror is showing us…

Because if AI can write the five-paragraph essay better than our students, maybe the problem isn’t the tech — maybe it’s the essay. If screens reveal inequities that existed all along, maybe the problem isn’t the screen — maybe it’s the inequity. And if our classrooms can be automated by a chatbot, maybe the problem isn’t the bot — maybe it’s the classroom. AI isn’t the villain here. It’s the spotlight. And we can either glare at it… or use it to finally renovate the room.

So, what if this really is our moment? Not to defend what we inherited, but to imagine what our learners need next. To push past nostalgia for “before times” and instead build systems where curiosity, adaptability, and humanity take centre stage again. AI gives us the chance to offload the hollow tasks so we can invest more deeply in what matters: literacy, thinking, relationships, purpose. In other words… the human parts of learning. Maybe indeed: that’s the feature, not the glitch. #tEChursdAI