{"id":413,"date":"2024-01-10T15:59:19","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T23:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/?p=413"},"modified":"2024-01-14T21:09:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-15T05:09:58","slug":"the-failed-experiment-of-inbloom-a-cautionary-tale-for-edtech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/the-failed-experiment-of-inbloom-a-cautionary-tale-for-edtech\/","title":{"rendered":"The failed experiment of inBloom – a cautionary tale for EdTech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Learning innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

inBloom was a non-profit organization which aimed to provide technology and data solutions to improve education in the United States. It was created in 2011 with the goal of creating a secure, standardized platform for student data to create more personalized and data-informed education. It was planned as a $100 million USD project for data sharing that was going to create an open source platform for learning apps and curricula. Much of the funding was backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Value proposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the intentions of inBloom was to create more tools for teachers, create shared standards for data collection, and increase access to instructional resources. In 2011, the Director of College-Ready Education Programs wrote a blog post describing InBloom as \u201ca huge app store just for teachers \u2013 with the Netflix and Facebook capabilities we love the most\u201d (Bulger, 2017). The proposed benefit of harnessing millions of data points from US students across school districts and states was to break down siloes and create more tailored experiences to bolster student achievement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reliance on technology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to develop, scale, and roll-out a project of this magnitude, inBloom required a consortium of software developers, technical experts, data experts, database developers, etc to create a massive data store to aggregate, clean, and present data so teachers could access it. It was an enormous endeavour to undertake financially, technologically, and logistically. It also suffered some differing views around risk tolerance given the information that it would collect would contain identifiable information about students such as names, addresses, ethnicity, test scores, special education status, and any disciplinary actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

inBloom failed to prove to stakeholders including parents, teachers, and privacy advocates a compelling value proposition that outweighed risks inherent in the project. Critics posed concerns about the misuse and sharing of data, in particular to third-parties. It lost support from school districts and U.S. states who were uneasy about the growing opposition and lack of clarity about how the data would be safeguarded. The loss of this support also meant a drop in financial contributions, which made the project more difficult to realize. In 2014, InBloom shut down and deleted all the student data it had collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years following its demise much has been said about the reasons why inBloom failed. It serves as a cautionary tale that any learning innovation must place pedagogy before technology. Though something is possible, is it relevant? Does it place students’ best interests first? Who is designing and conceiving the project? What biases are those parties coming to the table with? InBloom suffered from an inability to build transparency and trust and alienated key stakeholders along the way. It continues to serve as an example of how funding and enthusiasm for an innovation are only part of the required elements to achieve a meaningful, intentional, and ethical learning design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bulger, M., McCormick, P., Pitcan, M., (2017). The Legacy of InBloom<\/em>. Data & Society. https:\/\/datasociety.net\/pubs\/ecl\/InBloom_feb_2017.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open AI. (2023). ChatGPT. <\/em>(January 9 version) [Large language model]. https:\/\/chat.openai.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schaffuauser, D. (2017, February 15). Autopsy for the failure that was inBloom. The Journal. <\/em>https:\/\/thejournal.com\/articles\/2017\/02\/15\/autopsy-for-the-failure-that-was-inbloom.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learning innovation inBloom was a non-profit organization which aimed to provide technology and data solutions to improve education in the United States. It was created in 2011 with the goal of creating a secure, standardized platform for student data to create more personalized and data-informed education. It was planned as a $100 million USD project … Continue reading The failed experiment of inBloom – a cautionary tale for EdTech<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt524"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0278\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}