There are multiple places where instructional design has just gone horribly wrong.
I hear you 100%!
What I don't get is this: how hard is it to make a Word document or Google doc? If, after a year, that standard is too high, those teachers should be guided to other professional opportunities...
Literally even a bare bones message board with dated documents and a weekly calendar of assignments would work for most students. Blessedly, such tools are available for free. (Hint to luddite educators: they rhyme with "frugal bathroom".) And from what you've described, it sounds like a chaotic hodgepodge of resources that haven't been curated.
Teachers are supposed to have content curated for students in normal times. Presumably they don't dump the equivalent of a dusty old trunk from the attic in the classroom normally and tell the students to "have at it!" So why is it suddenly acceptable now that the delivery channel has changed? I don't understand how this is such an issue for so many of them. It's not even a matter of teaching; this is basic communication.
If it's one class, I'd say it's worth speaking to the teacher. Maybe outline a "before" and "after" version of the assignment to demonstrate what was needed for your child to engage with it appropriately. It may be that the substance is all there and, with a little conscious thought, it can be ordered and presented to better effect. If it's a broader concern, probably worth scheduling a heart-to-heart with the principal. Good luck!
(And I'm sorry, but linking a pile of videos in a non-film class assignment is just lazy teaching. One? Sure. Two if they're brief clips of critical events or discourse? Maybe. That's just one person's opinion. *Casting a dark stare in the general direction of the sluggard Pez dispenser...ahem...instructor.*)
So, pretty but useless, or content-rich but clunky.
Yes! So much of ed-tech is over-complicating a basic need: conveying information cogently. Yes, it needs to be factually correct and pedagogically sound. No, it doesn't need to be delivered by a hyper-realistic, digital, animatronic squirrel who can sing lessons to the tune of 1950s hits in falsetto. Nor does it need a student progress dashboard with a million useless data points to analyze, like how your child's left-to-right mouse click gap has closed in the last 13 minutes.
Ed-tech execs, take note. Your edict has been issued. No more squirrels!
*excuse my humour*
