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Bill Gates Says Tablets Aren't Much Help In Education
An anonymous reader writes "In a detailed interview on the future of education, Bill Gates was surprisingly down on tablets in education — considering that Microsoft just released Surface. He said low-cost PCs are the thing for students, and he dismissed the idea that simply giving gadgets to students will bring change. Quoting: 'Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher. And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input. Students aren't there just to read things. They're actually supposed to be able to write and communicate. And so it's going to be more in the PC realm—it's going to be a low-cost PC that lets them be highly interactive.'"
Yeah. His prognostications have been pretty much a joke. People should go back and read "The Road Ahead" and see how good that was.
Pencil. Paper. Calculator. The keyboard gets in the way of doing anything useful, especially if you're trying to do things involving symbols (like math).
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I've wondered the same thing as I've seen ads that pretty much every major school district in my area are touting iPads for every student next year. I love new shiny tech, but I feel like 'get of my lawn' curmudgeon being skeptical on the benefits of outfitting every kid with a free-to-use tablet. It's especially frustrating when in the same article about the local district offering iPads to everyone (via a technology-specific millage) that same district is still 500k in the hole after cutting $1 million by way of faculty layoffs.
I haven't looked, but is there research showing that giving every student an iPad improves something?
Bill Gates has been at the forefront of preventing innovation in computing and holding on to old ways of doing things for decades. It stands to reason the he wouldn't be able to understand that computing is possible without a keyboard.
That said, he is right that the equipment and the curriculum must work together. You can't just buy a fancy new toy and expect it to change much. But in the case of tablets, they could easily replace textbooks and printed materials with more interactive alternatives, and of course there'd be no benefit in having a keyboard if that's what you're trying to accomplish.
Personally I think he's right.
Bottom line, when they break schools aren't going to be able to afford to replace them. They'll be out of classrooms in less than 10 years.
Within very specific environments computers and the like are indeed beneficial. But for education in general all these devices do is distract. Kids want toys, teachers mistakenly believe it will ease the burden of teaching and administrators are easily suckered by anything they think will make them look progressive.
Even in college, in a course which required computer use I had to be vigilant about my students dicking around on instead of paying attention. The temptation to partake in other activities is far too strong. And the question is if, even when they're used for their intended purpose, do they actually enhance learning over a printed book and a good teacher? Do they actually aid in the retention of knowledge? I think these questions need to be answered first. But I suspect no one wants them answered because it will reveal all this as the gimmick it is.
Yeah, I mean, for my distaste of MS, I really find very little Gates says or does that I actually argue with.
It's really creepy to me: One man starts a cancer foundation, donates to charities, and, at least publicly, seems to be a decent human being, and is generally reviled. Another man is kind of an utter dick, makes abusive business deals, and after years of being a multi-millionaire without contributing anything to society, dies of cancer, and he gets worshiped like some kind of god.
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Just having access to books when you need it is reason enough to have tablets or netbooks in schools. Instead of talking about Adam Smith, you can just read his books. Instead of handing out 20-30 thousand page books to all the pupils in the class, all you need is have them download a 1-2MB file. Fully searchable. And that's just one example.
A single tablet can fit all books you'll ever need in school instantly accessible at any time.
Even if tablets do absolutely nothing in the way of improving education in any other way, that's reason enough.
We arent defending the 'tablet'. We are pointing out that CHEAP mobile devices are going to be EVERYWHERE. We need to learn how to use them to teach with, not force a desktop paradigm because its familiar. Tablets are not toys, you are a fucking luddite if you think that. Its a portable screen with a big battery, light local processing and huge hooks into 'big iron'. If you cant see how incredibly powerful that combo can be when applied correctly then you are missing the entire point. Dismissing tablets as toys shows your serious lack of vision.
Good-bye
Q. Tablet computers are big these days. The Surface tablet was just released by Microsoft last week, and iPads are all over campuses, but it doesn't sound like your approach has been to give devices to students and hope things change that way. What do you think needs to happen for factors like tablets to really make a difference? Or is that not even part of the equation?
A. Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher. And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input. Students aren't there just to read things. They're actually supposed to be able to write and communicate. And so it's going to be more in the PC realm—it's going to be a low-cost PC that lets them be highly interactive.
And he's RIGHT. We've seen this time and time again: some school gets some tech grant and goes on a tech spending spree on crap that in the end do nothing to aid in education. When I was in school, we had initiatives like smart boards, which were expensive and broke so much, teachers ended up using them as expensive whiteboards. Then we had laptop carts, where you trucked around this 10 ton cart to classrooms where none of the laptops were charged all the way and they never worked. And when they did work, they added nothing that a trip to the computer lab would have done.
So just giving students tablets isn't going to work. They'll be fun little novel gadgets, but students need to do real work which includes writing, typing, and other things you cannot do with your fingers. I used a tablet PC throughout college, and it was the best technology investment I made. It was one of those convertible tablets that switched from keyboard mode to laptop mode, and a had a stylus for writing notes. Classmates were constantly begging me for copies of my notes, since I was able to annotate book excerpts and capture chalboard derivations easier than they were able to with traditional PnP. Then the iPad came out and everyone said it was a godsend. I bought one in the hopes of replacing my tablet PC, but I was sorely disappointed at its capabilities. From a student's perspective, it was nothing more than a toy compared to my tablet PC, and I think that's what Bill Gates is getting at.
The submitter seems to think that Bill's words contradict Microsoft's efforts with the Surface, but the Surface is everything I wanted the iPad to be. It can run serious note taking software like One Note. It can *truly* multi task applications. It has digital pen input. It has a slim attachable keyboard. And when I'm at a desk I can connect it to a monitor and keyboard and use Office, Matlab, etc. as many students need to.
New tech has to prove itself.
No one else should cut it any slack just because you are getting all hot and bothered about your personal brand fetish becoming the new monopoly and replacing the old one.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I agree that new tech has to prove itself, however, comment like 'they are toys' are not helpful at all to the discussion and ignore the HUGE amount of use-cases tablets excel at.
Good-bye
>>>We need to learn how to use them to teach with
No you don't.
In the 1920s the newest technology was the shortwave radio which allowed worldwide communication. Did teachers suddenly needs radios in every classroom to be teachers? No. In the 1950s the newest technology was the TV. Did teachers suddenly needs TVs to be teachers? No. Now it's the tablet. (And the answer is still no.)
>>>you are a fucking luddite if you think that
Do you speak like that in front of your students? And no not a luddite. I just don't see how I am supposed to enter my engineering equations into a tablet. Or how students are supposed to do it either.
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I am an education professional with a graduate degree in Education Technology. Based on my review of the literature, and my own research, Bill Gates is absolutely correct in saying:
Just giving people devices has a really horrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher.
This part, however, is 100% opinion, and lacks the data to back his assertion:
And it's never going to work on a device where you don't have a keyboard-type input.
He's applying old paradigms from his comfort zone to modern learning. "Never" is a long time, Bill.
10 WAYS THE IPAD WILL FOREVER CHANGE EDUCATION
Every single one of those points, except the point that the iPad has limited multitasking capabilities (and that's somehow a good thing in the classroom), applies to laptops.
SD Unified Purchases 26,000 iPads For District Students:
At 30 kids a classroom, they could have afforded to give 866 teachers a much needed $17k raise with the money they spent on this technology push that will end up abandoned in 3 years. Better yet they could hire new teachers. Watch as those iPads become outdated and can't run the latest OS with the latest and greatest educational apps in 3 years time. Oh, and that's another $260,000 in a couple years to replace the batteries as they go. How often do you have to replace the batteries on a textbook?
We arent defending the 'tablet'. We are pointing out that CHEAP mobile devices are going to be EVERYWHERE. We need to learn how to use them to teach with, not force a desktop paradigm because its familiar.
So instead of pushing a desktop paradigm because it's familiar, we should push a tablet paradigm because it's new and even though people haven't figured out how to most effectively use tablets, they better figure out how to use them because they are going to be EVERYWHERE whether they are better than the alternative or not?
If you cant see how incredibly powerful that combo can be when applied correctly then you are missing the entire point. Dismissing tablets as toys shows your serious lack of vision.
My biggest problem with a tablet is not its display or CPU capabilities, especially with a stable network connection to reach cloud resources. My problem is that I just don't find a touch screen to be that usable for entering large amounts of data. Keeping notes in a one hour meeting is tolerable, but typing any significant amount of data (or code) is much harder on a tablet (plus there's losing half the screen real estate to the on screen keyboard)
And while I could get a bluetooth keyboard and turn the tablet into a laptop, I prefer to just use a laptop in the first place. My asus zenbook isn't a whole lot bigger than a tablet, but I find it to be much more usable. Maybe this will change with Windows 8 when my tablet OS and laptop OS are the same, so I can switch seamlessly between them and leave my laptop on my desk, and take the tablet when I'm mobile but still have the same UI experience. Or maybe the Motorola Atrix style philosophy will win out and my tablet will be my only computer, I just plug it into a docking station with full size monitor and keyboard when I'm at my desk.
Given the number of obvious auto-correct mistakes from coworkers that email me from their tablet, I think they have the same problems with typing on a tablet as I do.
Input speed. Entering text on a tablet is just painful. The reduced precision from the use of squishy fat fingers also makes fine graphical work difficult. They are great for web browsing, video watching, reading... consuming content. But actually creating anything more than a sentence long is impractical.
I get the impression you read Atlas Shrugged a few too many times.
Once docked its really not a tablet anymore is it? Plus those docks (and BT keyboards) are an overpriced added expense that I've only seen on high end tablets. We are talking about supplies for millions of students at all grade levels. Do you really think its a good idea to have young kids walking class to class with such expensive equipment?
Bill also thought the Internet was just a passing fad.
Tablets will become standard items in classrooms. Just like PCs and whiteboards.
How they will be integrated is still up for debate. Especially in earlier schooling tablets are still in the gadget phase.
T9 is a dictionary-based input acceleration method.
It's only good for quickly typing common words and phrases (and given all the example of mis-corrected/mis-typed message, it is even bad at that).
It's not designed at all to input complex unusual inputs.
And usually, activities in a school tend to be on the morte complex side than the simple "Sorry mom, I'm going to be late for supper, I'll be first going to the library with a friend" sentences for which T9 is designed.
Usually, the more functionnality is directly available at the push of a button (a hardware on, which can be found blindly through tactile feed-back), the faster you can command a device.
That's why no matter what fancy ribbon with icon is the latest trend, it won't beat the speed of someone knowing and using proper short-cuts.
The same way, no matter how fast your 15yo can use T9, she won't be able to type in complex formulas or academic texts, simply because her typing method requires a lot of button pushing for unusual words, whereas I have direct access to any symbol I might need to type.
The only equivalent would be a docked tablet with a full fledged keyboard. But then the advantages when compared to a netbook start to diminish.
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Are you fucking kidding me? Do you not realize how ridiculous you made your own argument sound? Let me summarize/paraphrase what you just said: "I can use my tablet the same as a PC, so long as I have several peripherals attached to it that render the fact that it is a tablet, and not a PC, absolutely moot."
So you have to have:
- Your Tablet
- External Monitor
- Apple TV
- Bluetooth Keyboard
All to have the same functionality as a laptop.
Way to be a tool bag. Yeah, tablets are a great invention. But as of right now, they are VERY much more for consumption than they are for production. The differences between Tablets and PCs is similar to that of a fork and a spoon: there are several situations where frankly, you could get away with using either or, but at the end of the day they serve two entirely different, albeit related, purposes.
They're definitely better and cheaper than carrying around a backpack full of books. A basic textbook can cost anywhere from $30 to $150 per class, not even talking about the "specialized" books. An e-book doesn't necessarily have to cost anything (distribution, transportation and replication cost is free/minimal) but usually ranges up to $30 in the worst cases (Pearson and the likes).
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