Never Send a Human to Do a Machine's Job

Correcting the Top 5 EdTech Mistakes
Gaoming Zhang - University of Indianapolis, USA
Jing Lei - Syracuse University, USA
Never Send a Human to Do a Machine's Job
July 2015 | 144 pages | Corwin
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ISBN: 9781483353470
Available from January 0001
Paperback
ISBN: 9781452282572
Available from January 0001

Description

Do what you do best and let technology do the rest

Technology has transformed our lives. Virtually every school and classroom is connected. Why then, has it not transformed education? Consider these five ways educators can begin to optimize classroom technology and rethink its use.

  • See technology as a complement rather than a replacement
  • Embrace its creation potential over consumption function
  • Encourage design and personalized learning over standards and outcomes
  • Celebrate the journey toward digital competence over curriculum improvement 
  • Focus on tech-pedagogy over product usage

Learn how to let technology cultivate student autonomy, creativity, and responsibility while focusing on lessons that hone higher-order and critical thinking skills. 

"Dr.  Zhao continues to push educators’ thinking by taking a serious examination of the role technology has played in education. The struggles he lays out are challenges educators try to overcome on an almost daily bases. The new thinking in this book needs to be read by those in the classroom and leaders alike." 
Steven W. Anderson, Author
Content Curation: How to Avoid Information Overload, @web20classroom


This book masterfully address the issues related to technology integration in schools. Dr. Zhao artfully navigates through the misconception of technology as the ultimate solution to the challenges of teaching.
Jared Covili, Author of Going Google and Classroom in the Cloud

Contents

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

About the Authors

Introduction

  • 1. The Wrong Relationship Between Technology and Teachers: Complementing in an Ecosystem Versus Replacing in a Hierarchy
  • An Ecosystem, Not a Hierarchy: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Teachers and Technology
  • Technology and Teachers in a Learning Ecosystem: What Are Their Niches?
  • Constructing a Learning Ecosystem: What Does It Look Like?
  • 2. The Wrong Application: Technology as Tools for Consumption Versus Tools for Creating and Producing
  • The First Approach: Technology as a Tool for Consumption
  • Constructivism: Constructing by Creating and Producing
  • Wikipedia: A Mass Project of Creating and Making
  • Digital Stories, Twitters, Blogs, Videos, and Robots: New Genres of Creating and Making
  • Diverse Needs as Creators and Makers
  • 3. The Wrong Expectation: Technology to Raise Test Scores Versus Technology to Provide Better Education
  • Can Technology Boost Test Scores? Don’t Let the Wrong Question Guide Our Technology Use
  • Providing Better Education: The Real Value of Educational Technology
  • 4. The Wrong Assumptions: Technology as Curriculum Versus Digital Competence
  • The Wrong Assumptions: Technology as Curriculum/Instruction
  • What Is Digital Citizenship?
  • Developing Digital Citizenship Through the Use of Digital Technology
  • 5. The Wrong Technology Implementation: Top Down Versus Bottom Up
  • Two Technology Paradoxes
  • Before 3 p.m. Model
  • After 3 p.m. Model
  • Before 3 p.m. Versus After 3 p.m.: What Are the Differences?
  • Alternative Ways to Implement Technology
  • Conclusion
  • 6. Making It Right: Reimagining Education in the Second Machine Age
  • The Need for Reimagining Education
  • Reimagining the What: Curriculum
  • Reimagining the How: Pedagogy
  • Reimagine the Teacher-Machine Relationship: Summary

Index

Index

Additional materials

Description

Do what you do best and let technology do the rest

Technology has transformed our lives. Virtually every school and classroom is connected. Why then, has it not transformed education? Consider these five ways educators can begin to optimize classroom technology and rethink its use.

  • See technology as a complement rather than a replacement
  • Embrace its creation potential over consumption function
  • Encourage design and personalized learning over standards and outcomes
  • Celebrate the journey toward digital competence over curriculum improvement 
  • Focus on tech-pedagogy over product usage

Learn how to let technology cultivate student autonomy, creativity, and responsibility while focusing on lessons that hone higher-order and critical thinking skills. 

"Dr.  Zhao continues to push educators’ thinking by taking a serious examination of the role technology has played in education. The struggles he lays out are challenges educators try to overcome on an almost daily bases. The new thinking in this book needs to be read by those in the classroom and leaders alike." 
Steven W. Anderson, Author
Content Curation: How to Avoid Information Overload, @web20classroom


This book masterfully address the issues related to technology integration in schools. Dr. Zhao artfully navigates through the misconception of technology as the ultimate solution to the challenges of teaching.
Jared Covili, Author of Going Google and Classroom in the Cloud

Contents

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

About the Authors

Introduction

  • 1. The Wrong Relationship Between Technology and Teachers: Complementing in an Ecosystem Versus Replacing in a Hierarchy
  • An Ecosystem, Not a Hierarchy: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Teachers and Technology
  • Technology and Teachers in a Learning Ecosystem: What Are Their Niches?
  • Constructing a Learning Ecosystem: What Does It Look Like?
  • 2. The Wrong Application: Technology as Tools for Consumption Versus Tools for Creating and Producing
  • The First Approach: Technology as a Tool for Consumption
  • Constructivism: Constructing by Creating and Producing
  • Wikipedia: A Mass Project of Creating and Making
  • Digital Stories, Twitters, Blogs, Videos, and Robots: New Genres of Creating and Making
  • Diverse Needs as Creators and Makers
  • 3. The Wrong Expectation: Technology to Raise Test Scores Versus Technology to Provide Better Education
  • Can Technology Boost Test Scores? Don’t Let the Wrong Question Guide Our Technology Use
  • Providing Better Education: The Real Value of Educational Technology
  • 4. The Wrong Assumptions: Technology as Curriculum Versus Digital Competence
  • The Wrong Assumptions: Technology as Curriculum/Instruction
  • What Is Digital Citizenship?
  • Developing Digital Citizenship Through the Use of Digital Technology
  • 5. The Wrong Technology Implementation: Top Down Versus Bottom Up
  • Two Technology Paradoxes
  • Before 3 p.m. Model
  • After 3 p.m. Model
  • Before 3 p.m. Versus After 3 p.m.: What Are the Differences?
  • Alternative Ways to Implement Technology
  • Conclusion
  • 6. Making It Right: Reimagining Education in the Second Machine Age
  • The Need for Reimagining Education
  • Reimagining the What: Curriculum
  • Reimagining the How: Pedagogy
  • Reimagine the Teacher-Machine Relationship: Summary

Index

Index

Additional materials

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Never Send a Human to Do a Machine's Job

Correcting the Top 5 EdTech Mistakes


July 2015 | 144 pages | Corwin

Format Published Date ISBN Price
Paperback 01/02/2026 9781452282572 $37.95
Lifetime 01/02/2026 9781483353470 $35.00

Do what you do best and let technology do the rest

Technology has transformed our lives. Virtually every school and classroom is connected. Why then, has it not transformed education? Consider these five ways educators can begin to optimize classroom technology and rethink its use.

  • See technology as a complement rather than a replacement
  • Embrace its creation potential over consumption function
  • Encourage design and personalized learning over standards and outcomes
  • Celebrate the journey toward digital competence over curriculum improvement 
  • Focus on tech-pedagogy over product usage

Learn how to let technology cultivate student autonomy, creativity, and responsibility while focusing on lessons that hone higher-order and critical thinking skills. 

"Dr.  Zhao continues to push educators’ thinking by taking a serious examination of the role technology has played in education. The struggles he lays out are challenges educators try to overcome on an almost daily bases. The new thinking in this book needs to be read by those in the classroom and leaders alike." 
Steven W. Anderson, Author
Content Curation: How to Avoid Information Overload, @web20classroom


This book masterfully address the issues related to technology integration in schools. Dr. Zhao artfully navigates through the misconception of technology as the ultimate solution to the challenges of teaching.
Jared Covili, Author of Going Google and Classroom in the Cloud


Table Of Contents:

  • Acknowledgments
  • About the Authors
  • Introduction
  • 1. The Wrong Relationship Between Technology and Teachers: Complementing in an Ecosystem Versus Replacing in a Hierarchy
  • An Ecosystem, Not a Hierarchy: Reconsidering the Relationship Between Teachers and Technology
  • Technology and Teachers in a Learning Ecosystem: What Are Their Niches?
  • Constructing a Learning Ecosystem: What Does It Look Like?
  • 2. The Wrong Application: Technology as Tools for Consumption Versus Tools for Creating and Producing
  • The First Approach: Technology as a Tool for Consumption
  • Constructivism: Constructing by Creating and Producing
  • Wikipedia: A Mass Project of Creating and Making
  • Digital Stories, Twitters, Blogs, Videos, and Robots: New Genres of Creating and Making
  • Diverse Needs as Creators and Makers
  • 3. The Wrong Expectation: Technology to Raise Test Scores Versus Technology to Provide Better Education
  • Can Technology Boost Test Scores? Don’t Let the Wrong Question Guide Our Technology Use
  • Providing Better Education: The Real Value of Educational Technology
  • 4. The Wrong Assumptions: Technology as Curriculum Versus Digital Competence
  • The Wrong Assumptions: Technology as Curriculum/Instruction
  • What Is Digital Citizenship?
  • Developing Digital Citizenship Through the Use of Digital Technology
  • 5. The Wrong Technology Implementation: Top Down Versus Bottom Up
  • Two Technology Paradoxes
  • Before 3 p.m. Model
  • After 3 p.m. Model
  • Before 3 p.m. Versus After 3 p.m.: What Are the Differences?
  • Alternative Ways to Implement Technology
  • Conclusion
  • 6. Making It Right: Reimagining Education in the Second Machine Age
  • The Need for Reimagining Education
  • Reimagining the What: Curriculum
  • Reimagining the How: Pedagogy
  • Reimagine the Teacher-Machine Relationship: Summary
  • Index

Recent Product Reviews:

“Yong Zhao and his team have written a book that challenges the ideas not of how technology can make teaching better, but of how technology can create schools that are truly learner-centered. They focus not only on what technology could do better, but how the human element of schools is still needed now more than ever."
George Couros, Division Principal, Innovative Teaching, Learning, and Leadership Consultant, Parkland School Division, Edmonton, AB, Canada
"Dr. Yong Zhao continues to push educators’ thinking by taking a serious examination of the role technology has played (or hasn’t) in education in the last 30 years. The struggles he lays out are those that many are trying to overcome on an almost daily bases. The new thinking in this book needs to be read by those in the classroom and leaders alike."
Steven W. Anderson, Author, Content Curation: How to Avoid Information Overload, @web20classroom
"This book masterfully address the issues related to technology integration in schools. Dr. Zhao artfully navigates through the misconception of technology as the ultimate solution to the challenges of teaching. The book provides useful examples of the successful marriage good instruction and good technology can have when properly balanced."
Jared Covili, Author of Going Google and Classroom in the Cloud
"In the final chapter, Zhao shines a spotlight on the need to leverage the voice of the STUDENTS (#stuvoice) in our classrooms as an asset to our own evolving connected capacities as adults. The development of social media in today’s world is constant, and each day our students bring with them rich cultures and talents into our classrooms. Zhao identifies this ripe space for innovation to be infused, but a culture shift is necessary on the part of adults. It’s not about the tools but the people. Students need to be empowered and teachers (and especially school leaders) need to relinquish some control. We can breed innovation or stifle innovation here."
Dr. Joe_Mazza, Leadership Innovation Manager, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennslvania
"Never Send a Human to Do A Machine’s Job is simultaneously an historical look at the myriad disappointments of technology in education over the past few decades and a vision for a future of a more personalized and product-filled educational experience. The vision provided in the book is realistic, well researched, and highly relevant to the needs of today’s learner. It is time to totally reimagine education. Are you ready?"
Curtis J. Bonk, Professor/President, Indiana University/CourseShare, LLC

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