“The amount of money globally that is invested in educational technologies would certainly provide motivation for bad actors to leverage a crisis and  use  the allure  of  a  simple solution  to  a  complex situation  to  make  a  buck  (or  several  million)”

Jason Lodge, Kate Thompson and Linda Corrin have had it with people peddling ed tech ideas that are not evidence-based and/or just plain “weird.” Writing in the Australasian Journal of Ed Tech they worry that the emergency switch to on-line learning is being sold as the new normal, when it did not “reflect high quality digitally-mediated learning any more than a life raft resembles a luxury cruise liner.”

“The combination of an apparent paradigm shift in combination with misguided ideas has grave possible implications for the future of higher education. Observations reinforce intuitive but incorrect notions, which, in turn, provide a shaky foundation for decision-making,” they warn.

So what is to be done?  “Until  there  is  more  of  an  appreciation  of  the different evidence and expertise that people across the tribes and territories bring, it is fair to suggest that there  is  much  more  to  be  done  to  understand  and  effectively  use  educational  technologies,” they propose.

And if not, “A veritable armada of dust-covered electronic whiteboards within educational institutions around the world serve as a constant warning about the risks of getting carried away with new technologies before we really understand how they can be used effectively (or not).”