Welcome to today's deep dive I am incredibly
glad you are here with us Because we have a mission
today that well it touches essentially everyone
listening Yeah, pretty much everyone right whether
you have kids or your student yourself, or you
just operate in a modern digital workplace We
were exploring the the hidden implications of
massive technology companies essentially running
our classroom. It is a massive shift that flew
completely under the radar for a lot of people.
Exactly. And our roadmap for this exploration
today is a rather striking blog post from March
of twenty twenty six. It's titled technology
companies certifying educators and it comes from
a platform called hack science dot education.
And the author there is Dr. Gary Ackerman. Yes
Dr. Ackerman. OK let's unpack this because his
background is the entire reason this post caught
our attention in the first place. Right. We really
need to set the stage here. Dr. Ackerman is not
just some outside agitator throwing stones at
modern technology from a cabin in the woods.
No, not at all. He spent a decade in the trenches
as a middle and high school math and science
teacher. And today he is a highly regarded educational
technology expert. Right. He literally wrote
the book on the subject, a text called Technology
Rich Teaching. He even hosts a show called Critoral
Plus Classroom. I mean, his daily professional
mandate is to encourage educators to use IT in
meaningful ways. Exactly. He is the person school
districts call when they need help implementing
new software. So when a veteran professional
whose entire livelihood is built around EdTech
starts raising massive red flags about his own
industry, well, that warrants deep attention.
Yeah, this is a structural critique from inside
the house. So to start, The catalyst for this
entire essay is it's almost deceptively mundane.
It really is. Ackerman writes that he doesn't
typically listen to afternoon radio, but he happened
to catch a broadcast on Vermont public radio.
It was a syndicated show called 1A. And they
were running a segment on the start of social
media's legal reckoning. Right. And during this
broadcast, one of the guests makes a relatively
simple point about the attention economy. Yeah,
the guest basically says that social media companies
are at their core businesses, and they generate
more revenue when people use their platforms
more. Which, I mean, we all... kind of know that,
right? Right. But the guest's point was that
if we are going to teach digital literacy, we
should explicitly include that basic economic
reality in our conversations with young people.
Like explicitly telling them that the tool is
designed to maximize your time on the tool. Exactly.
On the surface, that is practically conventional
wisdom in 2026. We all know the scrolling algorithm
on a social video app is engineered to keep your
eyeballs glued to the screen to serve you more
ads. All right, the endless scroll. But wait
a second, I have to push back here. It's obvious
that a scrolling app wants our attention, but
are you really suggesting that tools meant for
learning have that same underlying profit -driven
motive to just keep us hooked? I know, it sounds
a bit strange at first. I mean, think about classroom
grading software or school -issued word processors.
A digital math worksheet isn't serving me targeted
pop -up ads for sneakers. The economic incentive
feels completely different. What's fascinating
here is how that exact assumption, the idea that
educational software operates on a totally different
moral plane than social media, that is what cracked
open Ackerman's epiphany. Oh, really? Yeah. Because
you are correct that a classroom platform does
not look or function like a social media feed,
but the underlying architecture, the business
model driving the corporate entity, It is structurally
identical. Structurally identical. So how does
that work if there are no ads? Well, educational
technology is not developed in a philanthropic
vacuum. It is built by the exact same massive
corporate entities that dominate the rest of
the tech sector. So the product might be a cloud
-based classroom instead of an infinite scroll
of dance videos. But the financial metrics are
the same. Exactly. The metric is ecosystem walk
-in. Ecosystem walk -in. OK, explain that. When
a tech company secures a contract with a massive
public school district, their immediate goal
is to make their specific suite of tools deeply
embedded into the daily workflow of every teacher,
every administrator, every student. Ah, so the
switching costs become astronomically high. Precisely.
If a teacher builds five years of lesson plans
exclusively inside one company's proprietary
software and all the student data is siloed in
that company's cloud, the district is essentially
captive. Wow. So the more time the student spends
clicking around inside that specific branded
ecosystem, the more indispensable the platform
appears to the district administrators. Who are
the ones writing the checks? Right. So the usage
creates the data, the data creates the lock in,
and the lock in secures the renewal contract.
And that is what Ackerman realized listening
to that radio guest. He realized with a shock
that he spends his days advocating for tools
built by entities whose primary directive is
increased usage, not necessarily optimized human
learning. That is a chilling realization for
someone in his position. It really reframed a
memory he had been carrying around for over a
decade. He actually brings us back to 2015 in
his post. Right, the 2015 flashback. This serves
as a vital pivot point, I think, in understanding
how tech companies actually operationalize this
lock -in. Yeah, he tells the story about a colleague
from 2015 who is enthusiastically encouraging
him to enroll in a program to become a quote
unquote Google certified educator. And Ackerman's
response was incredibly blunt. He basically told
his colleague that he didn't need a technology
corporation to tell him how to be a teacher.
Which, as you can imagine, predictably did not
endear him to his colleague. Yeah, I can vividly
picture that interaction in a school staff room.
Ackerman probably came off as the stubborn old
-school curmudgeon who just refuses to get with
the times. Oh, absolutely. And he admits he has
thought about that specific interaction repeatedly
over the past 11 years. He's even posted about
it on platforms like Mastodon and Blue Sky, right?
Arguing that educators do not need tech companies
certifying their pedagogy. But it was only after
the radio broadcast about usage models that the
actual danger of these corporate certifications
crystallized for him. So to fully grasp that
danger, we kind of have to look at the historical
timeline of educational technology. We do. Ackerman
points out that in the early years of his career,
the entire conversation in education was monopolized
by a single logistical hurdle, which was access.
Right. The overarching goal was simply getting
a computer onto the desk of every single student.
Right. The one to one laptop initiatives. I remember
that school boards were laser focused on just
the hardware procurement. And honestly, that
focus made sense at the time. I mean, you cannot
teach digital literacy without digital tools.
But Ackerman notes a critical flaw in that era.
Educators and administrators spent so much energy
trying to reach the summit of widespread device
access. that they never developed a comprehensive
pedagogical blueprint. They didn't know what
to do once they got there. Exactly. They finally
got the digital lumber delivered to the site,
but there was no architect. Here's where it gets
really interesting because nature and the free
market absolutely abhor a vacuum. They really
do. The hardware vendors didn't just drop off
the laptops and walk away. It is like getting
your driver's ed certification exclusively from
the Ford Motor Company. That is a great way to
look at it. Right. Suddenly, your entire curriculum
is about how to operate a Ford transmission,
how to navigate the Ford dashboard, and how to
troubleshoot Ford parts. You aren't really learning
the universal laws of the road. Exactly. You
are being trained as a specialized operator of
one company's product. And worse, you start subconsciously
believing that Ford is the only vehicle that
exists on the road. It completely narrows your
fundamental worldview of what driving even is.
If we connect this to the bigger picture, we
see how the noble goal of providing access inadvertently
created a massive vulnerability for corporate
influence. To vacuum. Right. Into that pedagogical
vacuum swooped the tech giants. Ackerman lists
the major players explicitly in his post. Who
are we talking about? Google, Apple, Microsoft,
OpenAI, IBM, Meta, and Amazon Web Services. AWS.
So the biggest companies on the planet. Yeah.
These massive conglomerates evolved beyond being
mere hardware or software vendors. They developed
official sounding educator and trainer programs.
They began issuing certifications. Let's look
at what that actually means in practice, because
when a teacher becomes a, quote, certified educator
by a massive cloud computing company, they aren't
taking master classes in cognitive psychology.
No, definitely not. They aren't learning about
developmental milestones. They are taking exams
on how to seamlessly integrate that specific
company's cloud storage, email clients, and AI
grading tools into their daily classroom operations.
And that shift from access to influence is profound.
When a corporate entity writes the certification
for an educator, they are quietly molding the
foundational philosophy of education. To perfectly
align with their product ecosystem. Exactly.
They are redefining what it means to be a good
teacher. That is wild. Under this model, a good
teacher isn't necessarily one who fosters deep
critical thinking or emotional resilience. A
good teacher is one who effectively maximizes
the deployment of the tech company's software
suite. It is a brilliant, almost invisible corporate
takeover of pedagogy. And it's entirely disguised
as professional development. It really is. The
tech companies convinced the educational system
to let the lumberyard write the building codes.
And that realization is why Ackerman has shifted
from writing mildly annoyed blog posts back in
2015. to sounding a blaring alarm in March of
2026. Right. This is no longer a philosophical
grievance for him about corporate overreach.
He views it as an immediate compounding crisis.
So let's talk about that crisis because he grounds
this urgency in the daily realities of the educators
he works with most closely, specifically middle
school teachers. Right. And if you are listening
to this and remembering your own middle school
experience, you probably recall the sheer awkwardness,
the social friction. Oh, yeah. It's a messy time.
The messy process of just learning how to interact
with other humans. Well, Ackerman points out
that today teachers are having to actively engineer
activities just to force students to look away
from screens and reconnect with one another.
Basic human to human connection is becoming an
unnatural state. It literally requires classroom
intervention now. And layered on top of that
social isolation is the absolute dominance of
AI in how students complete their work. Akerman
argues that we are facing a critical juncture
here. He says we desperately need to, and I quote,
disconnect from information and reconnect with
concepts. Disconnect from information and reconnect
with concepts. Yeah. He acknowledges that the
difference between raw information and conceptual
understanding has always been a challenge in
education. But the current technological landscape,
specifically the proliferation of frictionless
AI tools, has magnified the problem to an existential
level. I want to read the specific language he
uses near the end of his post because, well,
he doesn't pull any punches here. He really goes
for it. He warns that by accepting these corporate
training modules, educators are getting certified
to teach with products that, quote, can damage
young brains if we are not extremely careful.
Yeah, he literally inserts a hard stop in the
text right there. He tells a reader, stop, read
that last paragraph again. And he ends with a
plea asking, what are we doing? No, I have to
step in and push back on that phrasing. OK, let's
hear it. Because saying these products, quote,
damage young brains sounds incredibly extreme.
It's heavy language. It is. When I hear language
like that, My first instinct is to group it in
with historical moral panics. You know, it sounds
like the 1980s warning that sitting too close
to the television will make you go blind. Or
that reading comic books will rot your brain.
Exactly. Is he just having a generational get
off my lawn moment about a new technology he
doesn't like? This raises an important question.
And honestly, that initial skepticism is a vital
filter to have. Right. We have to be careful
not to just panic. Absolutely. If this warning
were coming from an outsider who feels alienated
by modern tools, we might easily dismiss it as
leadite paranoia. But we have to factor in the
source's expertise here. Ackerman publishes academic
work on data analytics and network security.
He writes extensively about generative AI. So
he is deeply literate in the underlying code
of these tools. He is not afraid of complex systems.
Exactly the opposite. He understands them at
a granular level. So when a network security
and data analytics expert who also has a decade
of experience teaching middle school math uses
the phrase damage young brains. He is not talking
about like radiation from a screen? No, he is
talking about the physical biological reality
of cognitive development. He is zeroing in on
the neurological difference between accessing
information and actually grasping a concept.
Let's break down the mechanics of that because
how does a digital tool actually stunt that development?
We have to look at how learning physically happens
in the brain. When a student is trying to grasp
a complex mathematical concept or a scientific
principle, they experience cognitive load. It's
frustrating. It is. It requires trial, error,
and struggle. But neurologically, that struggle
is the mechanism that builds and strengthens
neural pathways. Oh, I see. It's a biological
process called myelination. It's where the brain
coats heavily used neural connections to make
them faster and more efficient. So the friction
of not knowing the answer and having to work
to find it. That is what physically wires the
brain to understand the concept. Yes, exactly.
Now look at how corporate tech platforms, especially
AI systems in 2026, are engineered. Their fundamental
design philosophy is the complete elimination
of friction. Right. A successful tech product
is one that anticipates your problem and delivers
the solution instantly. seamlessly, with zero
cognitive load on the user. Which is absolutely
fantastic if I'm a 40 -year -old middle manager
trying to rapidly format a quarterly earnings
spreadsheet. Right, you don't need to build a
neural pathway there, you just need the data
formatted. But for a developing middle school
brain, friction is not a bug in the system, it
is the entire point of the system. If a highly
efficient corporate designed AI platform does
the heavy lifting, if it balances the chemical
equation or structures the argumentative essay,
instantly the student is certainly accessing
the information. But their brain never undergoes
the productive struggle required to myelinate
those neurons. They never actually grasp the
underlying concept. It's like giving a teenager
a helicopter to reach the summit of a mountain
and then acting surprised when their leg muscles
begin to atrophy. That's a perfect way to put
it. The climb wasn't just a barrier to reaching
the top. The climb was the exercise that built
the muscle. We're literally optimizing the struggle
out of the classroom. And because the massive
tech companies are the ones designing the educator
certifications, they are the entities defining
the metrics of success. Oh, man. So if a certified
teacher is trained to view success through a
corporate lens of efficiency, rapid completion,
and high platform engagement. They are inadvertently
bypassing the deeply inefficient, incredibly
messy human process of conceptual learning. So
the damage Ackerman warns about is the systematic
atrophy of cognitive development. And it's all
disguised as technological progress. Yes. The
tools have literally optimized the humanity and
the biology right out of the learning process.
And the companies building the helicopters are
the ones writing the physical education curriculum.
That captures the tragedy of the situation perfectly.
I mean, we spent 10 hard years solving the hardware
problem, getting the computers into the hands
of the students. And in the subsequent decade,
we blindly handed the keys to the curriculum.
the very philosophy of how a human being learns.
We handed it over to Apple, Google, Microsoft,
Meta, and OpenAI. We let the lumberyard design
the house. So what does this all mean? If you
are listening to this on your commute or while
walking the dog, why does the history of EdTech
certifications matter to your everyday life?
It matters because these systems touch everything.
Right. If you are a parent, This analysis fundamentally
changes how you might view the shiny new apps,
the dashboard portals, and the mandatory software
your child's school district adopts. It forces
you to ask if a tool is facilitating learning
or just facilitating usage. And if you are a
student, it might make you deeply question whether
that generative AI tool that makes your late
night homework assignments effortless is actually
a tool for growth. or a tool for cognitive bypass.
Exactly. But even beyond the classroom, if you
are an adult navigating a tech -heavy workplace,
this deep dive is a stark reminder to recognize
who is actually designing the digital infrastructure
you rely on every single day. The platforms we
use are never neutral. They carry the economic
imperatives and the philosophical biases of the
corporations that built them. We are required
to critically examine the underlying motives
of the systems that structure our lives. I mean,
we began this exploration with a simple observation
from a public radio broadcast. Social media companies
require your usage to survive. And we followed
Dr. Ackerman as he courageously applied that
same harsh economic lens to his own beloved field
of educational technology, exposing the shared
DNA between the platforms that distract us and
the platforms that are supposed to educate us.
We tracked the historical pivot in 2015, observing
how a desperate rush for classroom hardware created
a vacuum. A vacuum that allowed corporate giants
to quietly transition from selling devices to
dictating pedagogy through branded educator certifications.
And we finally confronted the very real stakes
of 2026. We are looking at a landscape where
the hyper -efficient delivery of information
by AI is actively robbing developing brains of
the productive struggle they need. The struggle
they need to form conceptual understanding, leaving
educators desperately trying to piece basic human
connection back together. It brings us right
back to our original metaphor of the house. We
now know that the lumber company should never
be allowed to design the architectural blueprints.
We see the conflict of interest clearly, but
that leaves us with a deeply unsettling, lingering
thought to chew on long after this audio stops
playing. The vacuum is still there. Right. If
we take Dr. Ackerman's urgent warning to heart,
if we collectively decide to reject big -text
certifications, their proprietary training modules,
and their frictionless ecosystems... Who should
be defining digital literacy in the age of AI?
Exactly. Identifying the problem is only the
first step. Is it even functionally possible
for our chronically underfunded educational systems
to utilize these ubiquitous, incredibly powerful
tools without quietly surrendering to the corporate
values of the toolmakers? It's a massive challenge.
If the tech giants don't write the building codes
for the minds of the next generation, who will
step up to do it? It's a heavy question, but
it is one we all need to start asking. Thanks
for diving deep with us today.