{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.028391167192429023, 'fraction_numerical': 0.007886435331230283, 'mean_word_length': 4.5701754385964914, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Technology in computing education: yet another bandwagon?

The title of this talk was inspired by David Kay’s paper “Bandwagons Considered Harmful” in the December 1996 SIGCSE Bulletin [2]. In an email message to him, I stated that his was a paper that needed to be written at least every five years to remind us of the folly of rushing to adopt the latest fad (or application) in education. Two quotes from that paper that are especially relevant to today’s talk are “Innovations have the potential to do more harm than good” and “We must take great care that our enthusiasm for novel approaches not lead us to omit something vital”.