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I've been hearing this crapola about computers taking over education since I started teaching back in the 1970s. And it's made little progress toward happening, because the key to learning is the teacher/student interface. There is technology that assists teachers, much like old innovations such as overhead projectors helped teachers years ago. I remember people musing that Powerpoints would take over teaching. Boring. I've seen great reading programs that teachers can use to diagnose reading problems and then teach appropriate reading skills. But it still took a teacher.
A little over a decade ago we had a reasonable number of parents who wanted us to offer Latin I at the middle school level, but no teacher who could teach it. The state was sponsoring a Latin television-teaching program that kids would watch with a non-foreign-language teacher supervising. We tried it. It was an unmitigated disaster.
In education, at least in the foreseeable future, technology is a tool, not an answer.
I taught special ed. Tech, specifically adaptive tech, is already used extensively, and with many great results. It's a valuable supplement that works great in some contexts, and not so much in others. But there isn't, in general, a realistic way to replace people who teach students with disabilities with tech. Partcularly since much of our teaching centers largely around experiential ed, life skills, and acquisition of social skills.
Forget behavioral intervention, which is a huge facet of special education.
Then who will parents and society blame if Little Johnny fails?
I realize this is sarcasm, but there is a point there as well, to wit: We're talking about KIDS! They need supervision, and they need it well into high school. In any classroom, including a senior year in HS classroom, a small group of kids can wreak havoc if there is no adult supervision.
I can see blended education models increasingly coming into favor where teachers take on more of a facilitator role in rooms with students working for large chunks of time on computers, but I don't see a scenario where computers outright replace teachers.
It could because of the use of SmartBoards and Chromebooks.
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