How to Spot EdTech Solutionism

Direct Answer

Write the problem without naming a tool. Is low attainment caused by missing knowledge, staffing, time, poverty, language, curriculum, safety, or invalid assessment? Then ask how the product's specific feature changes that mechanism. A dashboard does not improve learning unless someone receives valid information and can act effectively.

Watch for inevitability, disruption, personalization, engagement, scale, and “AI-powered” language without operational definitions. Ask what nontechnical alternatives exist and whether the product merely automates a weak process. Compare it with hiring, training, curriculum redesign, smaller groups, or removing an administrative burden.

Historical Context

Film, radio, teaching machines, television, computers, tablets, MOOCs, analytics, and AI have each been promoted as transformative. Some produced valuable capabilities, but effects depended on curriculum, professional practice, infrastructure, and institutions. Solutionism names the recurring reduction of social problems into tractable technical tasks.

Philosophical Perspectives

Technological instrumentalism treats tools as neutral. Philosophy of technology examines how designs shape action and power. Pragmatism asks about consequences. Critical theory analyzes commercial interests and depoliticization. Capability theory asks whether technology expands real options or confines users to a vendor-defined pathway.

Modern Reflection

Demand independent evidence on the intended outcome, not clicks or satisfaction alone. Include setup, training, correction, maintenance, accessibility, energy, procurement, subscription, migration, privacy, and teacher labor. Inspect data flows, algorithmic decisions, bias, interoperability, contract change, export, deletion, and service failure. Pilot reversibly with predeclared success and stop criteria.

Related Thinkers

John Dewey evaluates tools within educative experience. Jacques Ellul critiques technological systems. Langdon Winner argues artifacts can have politics. Evgeny Morozov popularizes the critique of solutionism. Neil Selwyn studies education technology through policy, labor, and inequality.

Related Quotes

“Technology will not replace teachers, but teachers who use technology will replace those who do not” is coercive marketing, not evidence. It frames adoption as inevitable and makes workers bear responsibility for vendor claims.

Further Learning

Use a procurement pre-mortem: problem; cause; mechanism; alternative; evidence; users; nonusers; workload; access; data; security; failure; lock-in; total cost; exit. Ask who gains authority. Approve only when educational benefit and governance are stronger than realistic alternatives.