Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bill Gates Says Tablets Aren't Much Help In Education

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-it-worked-on-star-trek dept.

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.'"

5 of 575 comments (clear)

  1. i don't really like bill gates that much but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I completely agree with his assessment

    1. Re:i don't really like bill gates that much but... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I completely agree with his assessment

      While I've watched computers go from useless technology, foisted on schools, to useful technology, sought by schools, I can only imagine his brilliant assessment is forged with the same insights that failed to foresee the internet when he was writing The Road Ahead. Bill's strength was always taking what someone else had invented and bundling it into his operating system and driving them out of business -- not because he needed to, but because he felt he needed to.

      Some day kids and teachers will be using these in education, while PCs will be relics of the past. He really needs to shut it.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:i don't really like bill gates that much but... by WilyCoder · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Web apps? LOL...

      How's that sand-boxed browser working for you? Do you have all the hardware acceleration you need? Can you churn out simd code using the NEON registers of the ARM chip? Got access to the camera, GPS & accelerometer? Are you getting all the multithreaded performance you desire?

      No, you're not constrained AT ALL...

    3. Re:i don't really like bill gates that much but... by hawguy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Being a locked down walled garden appliance kind of limits their usefulness.

      The iPad is only a locked down walled garden to geeks. To a non-technical person, the iPad opens up much more possibility than is walled off. It would be hard for a teacher to find a useful application that's available on "open" Android, but not on "closed" iPad.

  2. Re:Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work education IT, and every leadership conference in the last few years have centred around iPads and mobile computing. There are always multiple sessions about how they allow for innovative learning, classroom-less experiences, interactive learning, and a bunch of fancy buzzwords.

    Aside from very few cases - autistic kids playing an iPad game show improvement in certain situations is a common example, I haven't seen anything I'd consider an improvement, especially anything that's iPad specific. We've seen many examples of student presentations made with the iPad camera, but they're exactly the same caliber as a regular presentation, or one recorded off any old recording device. They're new and shiny, so people want them. That's generally it.

    Worst case, and in general, kids use the new stuff to fuck around. Give a class iPads and laptops, and I'll show you a class of kids watching youtube. At least with the iPad their not playing flash games all day.

    We recently had one principal ask how we can support a class set of iPads. We asked what he wanted to use them for, and nobody could give us an answer. There were buzzwords - mobile learning, hands-on learning, etc., but nothing concrete on how they would help the children's education.

    Finally I think very few teachers have the skillset required to utilize the new technology in any meaningful way. They don't fit properly with the tried and tested pen and paper methods, and teachers aren't either technologically capable, administratively capable, have the professional development available, or otherwise have the support of their educational system for any meaningful changes. Either they lack the skills, or they lack the support, or iPads just don't fit in an education system.