Devil's Dictionary: the ed-tech edition

I've been noting humorous updatings of Ambrose Bierce's 1906 humor classic The Devil's Dictionary for years — there was the publishing edition, and this corker on copyright — but the Educational Technology edition, by New Storytelling author Bryan Alexander has a currency and an urgency that scores an acerbic bullseye.


Some of my favorites:


App, n. An elegant way to avoid the World Wide Web.

Big data. n. pl. 1.When ordinary surveillance just isn't enough.

Chromebook, n. "A device that recognizes that the mainframe wasn't such a bad idea after all." (by gmphap1)

Cloud, n. 1. A place of terror and dismay, a mysterious digital onslaught, into which we all quietly moved.

Failure, n. 1. A temporary practice educators encourage in students, which schools then ruthlessly, publicly, and permanently punish.

Lifelong learning, n. An institution's strategy for extracting money from alumni. Also known as "development".

Makerspace, n. "a 2004 computer lab with chairs that roll and a soldering iron." (See also Open Lab) (by Robin DeRosa)

Powerpoint, n. 1. A popular and low cost narcotic, mysteriously decriminalized.

RIAA, n. A friendly and major stakeholder in campus technology decision-making.

YouTube, n. The ideal educational technology: everyone likes and uses it, it's reliable and free, and neither you nor anyone you know has to support it.

A Devil's Dictionary of Educational Technology
[Bryan Alexander/Medium]

(via 4 Short Links)