Recovering Idealist. Still a Realist. Quietly a Possibilist: Building Bridges (Not Binaries)
Today I spent half an hour on a call with Kimberley Olliff Cooper trying to do something deeply modern and deeply boring: get a platform to behave.
It didn’t sync. We restarted. It worked.
“Good old technology,” I said, and then laughed, because I’d been writing a newsletter about technology all morning.
Not the shiny kind. The kind that decides whether a human conversation gets to happen at all.
And the truth is, when tech works, it disappears. Two people meet. The tool becomes a conduit for humanity, not a cage.
That’s the only version of “EdTech” I’m interested in defending.
I’m a recovering idealist (and that’s a design choice)
When I say I’m a recovering idealist, I don’t mean I used to believe technology would save education.
I mean I used to believe people and institutions would reliably do the right thing by each other if the intention was good.
They don’t. Not consistently.
Most people do what the incentives reward, especially when they’re tired, scared, overstretched, or trapped inside systems that punish nuance.
That isn’t cynicism. It’s operational realism.
I still believe care is real. I just don’t confuse care with outcomes.
So I design as if goodwill won’t scale and I build scaffolding where the right thing is the easiest thing.
(Yes, this is partly about safeguarding, workload, and the quiet violence of administrative “accountability”.)
A podcast I largely agree with, but I want to add the part that often gets erased
A colleague sent me a podcast episode that’s doing the rounds: Anna Stokke interviewing cognitive neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath on why classroom technology can reduce learning. It’s credentialed, evidence-heavy, and, in places, compelling.
There’s plenty in it I agree with: attention fragments, multitasking is corrosive, and more screen time in classrooms often correlates with worse outcomes. The episode itself points to international assessment correlations and the limits of what we can prove causally in social systems. It’s strong on classrooms. I’m writing from the bridge-back-to-learning world.
And here’s where I get wary and where Kimberley nailed it in one sentence:
We’ve become a society that thrives in extremes.
Tech good vs tech bad. Pen and paper vs screens. I’m right, you’re wrong. One lever. One answer.
That is exactly how we end up in policy disaster.
Because the minute a nuanced critique hardens into a blanket claim: “screens can’t support real learning”, it becomes politically usable in the worst way.
It becomes a justification for withdrawal, not a route to better design.
Classroom tech often isn’t learning tech
In mainstream schools, a lot of “EdTech” isn’t actually for learning. It’s for:
admin
tracking
compliance theatre
surveillance with branding
procurement cycles masquerading as strategy
So yes: when technology increases teacher workload and fragments student attention, learning suffers. That’s not controversial. That’s Tuesday.
And the unsaid bit: classroom tech becomes most harmful when it’s used to compensate for policy failure - plastering over underfunding, understaffing, and systems too brittle to handle real human variability.
The bridge back to learning is not “more EdTech”
This is the bit I wish more debates included and it came alive in that call with Kimberley.
When the tech finally behaved, what happened?
Not “digital delivery”. Not “content”. A face-to-face relational connection through a screen.
For traumatised, attendance-fragile, anxious, neurodivergent, school-refusing, medically unwell, or system-burned young people, technology isn’t an “extra”.
It’s often the only dignified doorway back into learning.
Not because screens are superior, but because they can offer:
distance with dignity (no corridors, no crowds, no public failure)
control of sensory load (sound, light, camera-optional)
paced re-entry (asynchronous first, then low-stakes live)
micro-trust loops (predictability beats charisma)
access to specialists a local school can’t recruit
In that context, removing tech doesn’t produce “better learning”.
It produces absence.
So no, it’s not simple. And we shouldn’t pretend it is.
The distinction that changes everything: tool vs regime
Technology harms learning when it behaves like a regime:
covert monitoring
compulsory engagement
nudges and manipulation
constant platform-switching
dashboards replacing teacher judgement
“data-driven” decisions that are actually budget-driven
Technology helps learning when it behaves like scaffolding:
consent-first (opt-in, camera-optional, choice)
relationship-led (mentor before module)
regulation-aware (pace, predictability, emotional safety)
workload-reducing in real life (not just on a slide)
designed for return (a bridge has a destination)
Same screen. Completely different ethics.
And this showed up in miniature in our Canvas conversation too: a platform can be used as a compliance machine (“upload, tick, grade, done”) or as a relational learning environment with rubrics that actually describe growth, self-assessment that isn’t performative, and structures that let young people return without shame.
The platform doesn’t decide. The design does.
“Connectivity isn’t belonging” (and why community makes tech invisible)
Kimberley said something I want to keep:
Young people don’t lack connection. They have connectivity by default.
What they often lack is:
secure attachment (someone reliably has your back)
belonging (I’m safe as myself)
meaning (my life makes sense)
We’ve built platforms for contact. We haven’t built containers for being held. That’s the work.
And it’s also why community matters so much: when there’s genuine collaboration around the tool (mentors, educators, parents, researchers, builders) the tech becomes less of a stage and more of a quiet conduit.
A tiny, human metaphor: the “systems account”
In the middle of the call, we ended up talking about something unglamorous: a systems admin account.
Not because we’re obsessed with IT.
Because we’re obsessed with continuity and safety.
If everything is “owned” by a single individual account, it falls apart when that person leaves, burns out, or disappears. If the login is the same email you publish on your website, you invite spam and intrusion. Governance isn’t bureaucracy, it’s care made durable.
Again: the tech is not the point. The container is.
The Bridge Audit (keep it. use it. steal it.)
If you’re choosing tech for hybrid/online provision, ask:
Does this reduce adult workload, genuinely? Or does it just relocate it into evenings and dashboards?
Does it increase the quality of human contact? Or replace humans with tasks?
Does the learner gain agency? Can they regulate, pause, opt out, return?
Is there an explicit re-entry pathway? What does “back to learning” look like in weeks 1–6?
Is it governed like a relationship? Clear boundaries, consent, accountability.
If most answers are “no”, you’re not building a bridge.
You’re building a prettier admin system.
Call to action: join the NLN (because this is not a solo sport)
This is exactly why we’re growing the Novus Learning Network.
Because the “tech debate” gets stupid when it’s abstract and it gets honest when practitioners, parents, researchers, and builders are in the same room comparing what actually works.
If you join us, you’ll find people working on:
hybrid re-entry pathways that reduce harm
workload realism (what actually saves teacher time)
safeguarding and consent-first design
neurodivergent tools and “second brain” systems (yes: Obsidian, filing systems, sane defaults — the stuff nobody teaches)
research partnerships and longitudinal evidence (not vibes, not ideology)
And we’ll likely spin up a few clearer streams (because Kimberley’s right): a parent stream, an edtech builder stream, and a neurodivergent tools stream: practical, generous, zero performative perfectionism.
If you’re tired of extremes, and you want to build the scaffolding that makes care scalable - come in.
If you’re building a bridge back to learning, you don’t have to start from scratch. We’ve put our templates and guides in one place: https://buildingschoolsinthecloud.com/shop/ols/products
First published in Building Schools in the Cloud on LinkedIn, 11 January 2026.