Reflecting on Daycare (Ed)Tech and Being a New “Civics of Tech Parent”

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Post by Michelle Ciccone

Last fall and winter, my fellow Civics of Technology community members Allie Thrall, Charles Logan, and Phil Nichols started a conversation about what it means, or what it could mean, to be a “civics of tech parent.” In the ensuing months, I’ve joined their ranks, albeit further behind: my daughter just turned one, but already we have encountered our first piece of edtech. 

First, some context and background

My daughter’s daycare uses an app called Brightwheel. Through Brightwheel, I check her in and out each day by scanning a QR code via the app, message with the teachers and directors throughout the day, and pay my monthly bill. But my main interaction with Brightwheel is via the app’s newsfeed, where the infant teachers post real-time updates on naps, meals, and dirty diapers, and periodically upload pictures and sometimes videos of what the babies are up to. I get push notifications on my phone whenever an update has been posted to the newsfeed. 

I’ve learned that Brightwheel is part of what you might call a subgenre of edtech called “childcare management software.” In 2016, David Vasen, the founder of Brightwheel, appeared on Shark Tank. For those who follow the stories that edtech companies tell about themselves, a lot from this Shark Tank clip will sound familiar. Vasen tells “the Sharks” (or the panel of potential investors) his app is "revolutionizing early education” by “saving teachers time.” “The system is broken,” Vasen says, “and Brightwheel is the solution.” The Sharks are ultimately convinced: Vasen walked out with $600,000 from billionaires Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca.

I admittedly know very little (if anything, really) about the business and pedagogy of daycare. Is Brightwheel useful software to daycare centers? Perhaps. Does it save teachers time? Maybe. I wonder what commonalities and divergences there are between K-12 teachers’ experiences with classroom technologies versus the experience my daughter’s wonderful infant-room teachers are having with Brightwheel. (I’m constantly fighting the urge to ignore all of my ongoing research projects and start studying daycare edtech. Maybe someday…)

It’s of course hard to know what, if anything, my one-year-old daughter understands about the presence of Brightwheel in her classroom. At the very least, she sees her teachers having to periodically turn to their phones as they post updates to Brightwheel. Maybe her teachers will playfully verbalize, “Mom is going to be so excited to hear you ate all of your lunch!” When will my daughter start to understand that her teachers are sending information to me? Will that be exciting to her, or weird, or maybe she won’t care at all? 

The only thing I know for sure is what it’s like to be on the parent side of this platform, and as a developing “civics of tech parent,” I’ve been reflecting lately on my experience so far. I think I have to admit to myself that Brightwheel has the potential to shape my development as a parent, in at least a few ways:

Expectations of access

I absolutely cherish every picture my daughter’s daycare teachers post to my newsfeed, but it’s hard not to have this uncomfortable feeling in the back of my mind, as I begin to realize that this kind of real-time peek into my daughter’s daycare classroom is building this expectation that a parent needs or deserves that kind of real-time access to their child’s classroom. 

Because I’ve worked in a middle and high school, I know what is at the end of this road: I’m going to download the PowerSchool app (or something similar), and be able to check in real time when a teacher updates my daughter’s grades, and monitor which assignments she has missed. And as much as I believe that I will not be checking my daughter’s grades as often as I’m checking Brightwheel’s newsfeed for updates, I wonder: when will my expectations for access shift? Will my fellow parents, who will become accustomed to this level of access, continue to demand this kind of access as we move through the school years? Once you do have an expectation of access, I imagine it’s hard to shake. 

Real-time data and the illusion of control

Brightwheel provides me my first taste of this hyperfocus on data that Allie writes about in part 1 of the “civics of tech parents” series. The data in question here are not math assessment results but rather dirty diapers and ounces of formula, but I’ve been surprised by the impact that this running list of data points has had on me. 

During this first year of parenting, I’ve learned that babies are unpredictable. There are expected ranges in things like number of hours of sleep per day or number of ounces of formula consumed, but, wonderfully, babies are not robots, so it’s impossible to predict anything with precision. 

Deep down, I know this. And yet, with every update on Brightwheel, I worry that it’s proof that she’s not eating enough, or that she’s not sleeping enough, or not independent enough. It’s hard not to feel like every data point that populates my newsfeed is the output of an equation that I ultimately have gotten wrong. 

In his Shark Tank appearance, the Brightwheel founder says, “my connection with my little girl is so much deeper because of Brightwheel.” I’m not sure that my real-time tracking of this data from afar is shedding significant insight into my daughter’s needs, though. I think it’s just instilling an illusion in me that it’s possible to control her—if I as her parent could only get the data inputs right.  

Trusting edtech

The funny thing is, I had already come to this realization about the folly of data tracking data a baby.

In those first weeks and months of keeping a newborn alive, I went through periods where I kept a log of sleep, feeds, and diapers, to make sure all of those things were happening at about the recommended intervals. I kept that log in a little notebook though, because I had made a conscious decision to not use any of the data tracking apps, like Huckleberry, that were relentlessly advertised to me. I made this decision both due to data privacy concerns but also because I didn’t trust myself to not become obsessed with the tracker. As I was getting my feet under me as a new parent, I was wary of outsourcing my power of observation to an app, and risk losing a precious opportunity to develop my own intuition for what this baby (who felt like an alien from another planet) was communicating. 

So I had already developed a certain orientation as a parent to data tracking via digital apps. And yet here I am, obsessing over every Brightwheel update.

As I reflect via this blogpost, I realize one very simple thing I can do is turn off push notifications from Brightwheel, and that will solve half my problems. But I’m also realizing, from the vantage point of the parent side of this platform, that the fact that my daycare—which I trust completely—is using this app, makes me feel like the information that the app is relaying to me is important. I think, “Well, if the teachers think it’s important to send me a real-time update on how long her morning nap was, then I should pay attention.” 

But of course my daughter’s teachers don’t necessarily think that: this is just what Brightwheel does. Being on the parent side though, it can get mixed up. It’s easy to make the mistake of transferring the trust I have in the daycare to the app.

Becoming the type of “civics of tech parent” I want to see in the world

I’m five months in to this experience of being on the parent side of an edtech platform, and it’s been a bit humbling, to be honest. For one, I find myself revisiting decisions I made in my prior role as a K-12 technology integration specialist. I worry, “Did I communicate well enough to parents about the limitations of the edtech tools we were using in their child’s classroom?” Of course I didn’t. Now that I know what it feels like to be on this side, to receive data about my child from these platforms, I know I would have done things differently back then.

Second, I’m realizing that, though I’ve developed a critical eye when looking at edtech from the teacher side or the researcher side, I’m finding that in a lot of ways I have to train anew my critical eye when looking from this new, parent vantage point. There are particular knee-jerk reactions and assumptions that I need to practice noticing in myself, and develop the muscle to push back against, so that I can look at these platforms like a “civics of tech parent” should. I trust that this will come in time, though, and develop in part through continued reflection and conversation. And what’s most fun to think about: critiquing my daughter’s edtech will be something that she and I will be able to practice together.