Joel Klein, Amplify CEO |
Chase Carey, NewsCorp President |
.@nickkristof @rupertmurdoch speaking of your failure with MySpace I hear @amplify is losing boatloads of money too
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) May 17, 2013
What @rupertmurdoch?@amplify projects operating loss ofabout $80 million this year shar.es/Zse9k
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) May 17, 2013
Not even @gatesed & #datapirate @inbloomedu can save @amplify from losing millions @rupertmurdoch
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) May 17, 2013
Just a few weeks ago, I sent to the NYC Ed list a promotional email I had received from Amplify, written by VP Pete Gorman, former Superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg and now chief salesman for the company. In the email, he offered a sales pitch that was tone death and somewhat horrifying for parents who have tried to lure their children away from screens and video games, and back into real-life interaction with other human beings. Gorman wrote how his teenage daughter said to him, one day while walking to school:
You and Mom always say I have one job: to do well at school. When you go to your job, you don’t power down, so why do I have to?”
You could hear crickets at that moment, because I had no good answer for her. Then, as teenagers often do, my daughter took it a step too far. “Hm, I wish I knew someone who could do something about that.”
She was right. There was, in fact, a huge disconnect that was going on and, yes, I could and should do something about it. I had always felt strongly that technology, when applied the right way, could only make an effective teacher even more effective.
Talk about disconnect! You can read the rest of his explanation, called "Why I joined Amplify", supposedly prompted by this conversation with his daughter and wanting to help make sure she would never have to power off. He also writes that Joel Klein "was asking the same question at about the same time and decided to leave the New York City Department of Education to help start Amplify."
Pete Gorman, Amplify Vice President |
Here is the eloquent letter that a NYC parent wrote in response to Gorman's account of his conversation with his daughter:
As a parent, educator and human, I am horrified by your product, the "charming" back story for it and the underlying premise of the story. You are endorsing the view that everything that doesn't involve a screen is boring. Human interaction, and direct interaction with three dimensional physical objects for science, math, sports etc. is obviously just not stimulating enough for our kids. I "power-down" at work- when I'm teaching and interacting with students and colleagues! We have no evidence that screen based learning is good for kids, but we have plenty of evidence that too much screen-time has negative results on kids' development and harms adults as well. Kids are already in front of screens too much; so we now think it's a good idea to have kids "plugged in" during school too? God help us.
Sincerely,
Philip Yanos
1 comment:
When Rupert is no longer at News Corp, there will be no Joel Klein or Ampify. I'm guessing many employees are counting the days.
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