Who has benefited from the EdTech experiment in our classrooms?

Sir, – It is no coincidence that as technology has bedded down in Irish classrooms, rates of reading and maths have declined (“Irish teens getting weaker at maths and reading”, News, September 8th).If you have ever stood over the shoulder of a child trying to do their homework on a digital device, witnessing the tapping, sliding, flicking and disconnected and non-linear, shallow thinking at play, you would know in that moment everything the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has methodically taken years to prove.Who has benefited from the EdTech experiment in our classrooms? Not our children, that is clear from the report. By letting Big Tech play such a large role in education, all we have done is contribute to the coffers of billionaires while our children’s performances in key metrics decline in a manner that is “troubling” and “pervasive”. In my role as a teacher, I am encouraged by school management to use AI to write my class notes and slides, and to bring AI deeper into the classroom. Not only will I not hand over a key part of the process of teaching (researching, reflection, thinking, generating ideas to bring to the classroom) to a language model, I will not be using AI in the classroom without evidence. Where is the research that shows that AI will not harm the cognitive abilities of the students sitting in front of me? We adopted EdTech before we had the evidence that it was going to lead to poorer educational outcomes. Are we now going to do the same with AI?Showing students how to use AI responsibly, as teachers are being told to do, is tantamount to swapping teaching for training. We as teachers will no longer create meaning, encourage reflection and collation of ideas and get students to think for themselves, but rather train them to ask questions of a language model – in the mistaken belief that language is the same as thinking. And when faced with AI output, students will be in no position to evaluate and assess it.Until the OECD or some other body produces independent, verifiable, replicable research that proves AI is going to bring clear benefits to our students and have a positive impact on educational outcomes, we should not be letting it into the classroom. – Yours, etc,SHEILA MAHER,Goatstown,Dublin 14.