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Melinda Gates: Facebook Engineers Have Solved One of Education's Biggest Problem
theodp writes: Asked by the NY Times if Silicon Valley is saving the world or just making money, Melinda Gates replied, "I can say without a doubt — because I've seen it — that some of them [SV companies] are innovating in ways that make life better for billions of people." As an example, BillG's better half suggests that a handful of Facebook engineers have solved one of education's biggest problems with their 20% time project at billionaire-backed Summit Public Schools, a small charter school operator. Gates writes, "One of the biggest problems in American education is that teachers have to teach 30 students with different learning styles at the same time. Developers at Facebook, however, have built an online system that gives teachers the information and tools they need to design individualized lessons. The result is that teachers can spend their time doing what they're best at: inspiring kids." Some people — like the late Roger Ebert — might not be quite as impressed as Melinda to see Silicon Valley trying to reinvent the 1960's personalized-learning-wheel in 2015!
What Facebook does better than a piece of paper is the requirement of a computer. What would make Facebooks solution even better was that it required Microsoft Windows 10 and a Microsoft Office Online subscription for the pupils and a Microsoft Server Educational Edition with a CAL per student per teacher per desktop per tablet per smart phone with a cost of 150 dollar per CAL. Than Melinda Gates could step up and show her good heart and donate 1000 dollar per student so students and tax payers only have to pay 500 dollar per student to Microsoft on licenses instead of 1500 dollar.
Facebook can be used for marketing purposes, to convince old school schools to surrender and join the billionaires view on education (it includes the purchase of a tablet and the requirement of joining the social network).