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Hack Education
Personal blog · hackeducation.comother
Hack Education is a personal blog at hackeducation.com. Since 2010, 73 different Hacker News readers have linked it 168 times, most often “The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education' (2015)”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (28) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Audrey Watters's Hack Education blog for critical writing on education technology and on the 'factory model of education' myth, plus her retrospective on ed-tech debacles.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 28 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The History of the Future of Education Technology
Most-linked posts?
- The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education' (2015)6 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2017-02-15
- Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-01-01
- Steve Jobs Brought the Apple II to the Classroom3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-02-07
- The Best Way to Predict the Future Is to Issue a Press Release3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-11-03
- Steve Jobs Brought the Apple II to the Classroom3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-14
- Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-07-23
- The Wrath Against Khan: Why Some Educators Are Questioning Khan Academy2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-07-20
- Codecademy and the Future of (Not) Learning to Code2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-10-29
- Khan Academy and BitTorrent Partner to Distribute Educational Videos2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2011-02-11
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-08-27
What Hacker News says?
Interesting link, thanks for sharing. I read it and I think there's some miscommunication going on. The author is criticizing Sal Khan and like for suggesting that there was a deliberate, cohesive factory model (designed in order to..) whereas the commenter recounting Foucault here talks about the effects of the model, not its intention (designed in a way that...) Indeed there is no mention of Foucault in that artic…
Comment linking /2020/07/20/surveillance
on “School or Prison”Submitted Khan Academy and BitTorrent Partner to Distribute Educational Videos as a story · 162 points
HN discussionBecause the education system wasn't in fact designed to produce factory workers for a regimented system.[1]( http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model ) This is the problem with attributing purposes for which our ancestors never intended.
Comment linking /2015/04/25/factory-model
on “School or Prison”Submitted Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade as a story · 145 points
HN discussionAs Wikipedia notes, this is kind of just a myth - http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model
Comment linking /2015/04/25/factory-model
on “The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development”Submitted Why Are Coding Bootcamps Going Out of Business? as a story · 133 points
HN discussionIf you're interested in an ongoing critical look at technology in education, Audrey Watters is a great person to follow [0]. She helps keep me honest as someone working in this space. She put out a really long and interesting post, The 100 Worst Ed-Tech Debacles of the Decade [1]. [0] https://twitter.com/audreywatters [1] http://hackeducation.com/2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow
Comment linking /2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow
on “The technology pushed into schools today is a threat to child development”Submitted Khan Academy Gets 5 Million to Expand Faculty & Platform & to Build a School as a story · 99 points
HN discussionIt's almost as if school was designed to create labour for factory work. Although this is interesting: http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model
Comment linking /2015/04/25/factory-model
on “The need for tooling and the need for mastering your tools”Submitted The Invented History of 'The Factory Model of Education' as a story · 82 points
HN discussion> I just dont understand how did we end up here The push to get children familiar with appliance computers as opposed to general purpose computers goes at least as far back as the 1980s with Apple. So how we ended up here is basically nearly half a century of lobbying from computer manufacturers to promote proprietary computation appliances that children have limited or no control over. > we studied the law and it t…
Comment linking /2015/02/25/kids-cant-wait-apple
on “Final Decision on Chromebook Case in Denmark”Submitted Android App Inventor Open Sourced, Code Released as a story · 68 points
HN discussionIf you liked this essay (which I did), you are probably going to be interested in Audrey Watters's Hack Education blog. [0] In particular there is a big difference between the kinds of Papert-inspired computatiinal environments that provide microworlds for learning and a lot of what is being produced today (which Watters rightly calls out as a rediscovery of Skinner behaviorism and teaching machines). She has a lot…
Comment linking /
on “Why should children program? A review of Seymour Papert's Mindstorms”Submitted Codecademy and the Future of (Not) Learning to Code as a story · 61 points
HN discussionProbably referring to articles like this: http://hackeducation.com/2017/07/22/bootcamp-bust
Comment linking /2017/07/22/bootcamp-bust
on “Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College”Submitted University of Phoenix Enrollment Down by 42% as a story · 57 points
HN discussionSouthern California, I think they gave 2 to every elementary school in California iirc. -- EDIT: so, I guess it was not till the 80s they gave them out to all the schools. I thought we got them in the second grade, but maybe it was 4th grade. http://hackeducation.com/2015/02/25/kids-cant-wait-apple
Comment linking /2015/02/25/kids-cant-wait-apple
on “Easylang – An easy online programming language and development environment”Submitted Android App Inventor Saved: Finds a New Home at MIT as a story · 51 points
HN discussionI find arguments like this difficult to argue with since there are so many unfounded assumptions and so little evidence. But the author of this article took the time to address the rhetoric systematically. http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model
Comment linking /2015/04/25/factory-model
on “The University Is a Ticking Time Bomb”Submitted Imagine K12 Graduates Its First Class of Ed-Tech Startups as a story · 35 points
HN discussionHalf-correct in a completely incorrect way. Who’s more indoctrinated: someone who lives off the land and has all the free-mind time in the world since he does manual work all day? Or someone who went through over a decade of Prussian-inspired conformity/workplace training (schooling)? And gets information-saturated from all free angles throughout the day? It's inaccurate to think of Prussian school as a system of co…
Comment linking /2015/04/25/factory-model
on “The mythos of leadership”Submitted Why Maker Faire Matters as a story · 23 points
HN discussion> We've seen this before: use hype and techno-optimism to sell a bill of goods. Yep, after reading a piece on ed-tech failures of the decade 2010-2020[0] here on HN[1], I've become pretty convinced that big-scale education is hard (if not impossible) to solve with IT might only. Sure, one person alone can learn something through Wikipedia, Coursera, YouTube, Khan Academy or tutorials, but that can't replace structur…
Comment linking /2019/12/31/what-a-shitshow
on “One AI Tutor Per Child: Personalized learning is finally here”Submitted Top Ed-Tech Startups of 2011 as a story · 21 points
HN discussionAs a founder working in edtech, I'm glad to see a light shined on these practices, which are surprisingly pervasive. My company has received mass emails from teacher-bloggers asking if we want to submit our products for reviews or find out about sponsored posts. When I replied to inquire about product reviews, they responded with information about how I could sponsor a post. As it turns out, their entire site is a b…
Comment linking /
on “Education Startups Court Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues”Submitted Khan Academy, On Your Mobile Device as a story · 21 points
HN discussionDepends on the style, which is why it's worthwhile to look into it. These links might also be interesting: http://hackeducation.com/archives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvgbvtxYRX4
Comment linking /archives
on “Ask HN: Help me weave in STEM topics for a children's book”Submitted Show HN: ClassConnect, Github model for K-12 lessons as a story · 17 points
HN discussionEveryone copied from each other and made modifications . The Prussian influence on the US education system is well known. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system#Unit... . The thing is, that connection cannot be looked at in isolation. The main modern influence from the Prussian system we retain is in funding compulsory education through taxes. But US educators would also have been influenced by othe…
Comment linking /2015/04/25/factory-model
on “The Sick History of Public Education”Submitted The Wrath Against Khan: Why Some Educators Are Questioning Khan Academy as a story · 17 points
HN discussion
