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Bill and Melinda Gates: Textbooks Are Becoming Obsolete
Reader theodp writes: Thanks to software, Bill and Melinda Gates report in their 2019 Annual Letter, textbooks are becoming obsolete. Bill writes: "I read more than my share of textbooks. But it's a pretty limited way to learn something. Even the best text can't figure out which concepts you understand and which ones you need more help with. It certainly can't tell your teacher how well you grasped last night's assigned reading. But now, thanks to software, the standalone textbook is becoming a thing of the past" (if so, it'll be a 60-year overnight success!). The Gates are putting their money where their mouths are -- their education investments include look-Ma-no-textbooks Khan Academy and Code.org. Code.org, whose AP Computer Science Principles course for high schools "does not require or follow a textbook", boasted in its just-released Annual Report that 38% of all AP CS exam takers in 2018 came from "Code.org Computer Science Principles classrooms," adding that it had spent $24.2 million of its donors' money on curriculum and its Code Studio learning platform (30,300 hours of coursework), another $46.7 million to prepare 87,000 new K-12 CS teachers, $12.4 million on Marketing, and $6.9 million on Government Affairs. So, do we still need textbooks?
Two years ago, during a Jan. 17, 2017 discussion with Charlie Rose, Bill Gates said he spends "15 percent" of his time managing Microsoft. I interpreted that to mean that Gates is still extremely involved and very influential. Did Gates want the mess that is Windows 10?
From the transcript at that Charlie Rose web page:
08:42
"Bill Gates: I'm there about 15 percent of the time. And I get to work just on the R and D part, brainstorming with people, thinking, OK, how are we going to take this artificial intelligence and make it understand, help you use your time better. It's a very exciting time in software. There's five companies that are, you know, in a really strong position. Microsoft is leading in some really cool stuff so --"
It seems obvious that Bill Gates still has a huge amount of overall influence on the management of Microsoft, even if he mostly focuses on other subjects.
Some of the many stories about Windows 10:
Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." (Aug. 4, 2015)
Microsoft's Intolerable Windows 10 Aggression (May 27, 2016)
Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads (March 17, 2017)
Microsoft, stop sabotaging Windows 10. (March 21, 2017)
I find myself in surprising agreement with the Gates. As someone who was actually a teacher, I learned a lot about the deep negatives behind textbooks.
Not everyone on the planet can afford internet...
But they can afford it more than they can afford to keep current with textbooks. FFS, rural India and Africa have a surprisingly large amount of internet access. And not 100% of a community even needs it - just one person to pull down information.
By the time a textbook hits the market it's already a year or three out-of-date. It would be one thing if textbooks were cheap and we could just update them as needed, but they are a fucking racket. The people paid to write them are not necessarily experts in the subject, and they don't necessarily even have an education background. (I actually know some of them.) The cost that goes into making textbooks is really not that high, and the markup is utterly insane.
What we need are online texts that are free or very low cost, maintained and vetted by experts, and designed for educational use. We don't have that. We have parts of that, but not the whole package, which would be necessary to replace textbooks. If the Gates wanted to help, they'd set up such a system for all subjects. But to do that they'd have to understand something about the education system and hire some experts to work with teachers to figure out how to craft an internet replacement for textbooks. It would need to be low-bandwith, downloadable and printable, organized to match standardized curriculum, and be easy for teachers to craft lesson plans around.
But given this is the guy who made Microsoft, it's clear that such a concept would be utterly foreign to him.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Dear Beloved Bill, on the other hand, is either suffering from accelerated senility or is merely continueing the subtle eugenicist fuckery of his ilk.
This. This is the guy who sends poor countries some medicine (valuating them at five orders of magnitude above reasonable price) for the tiny string attached of agreeing to forbid local manufacture of said medicines. Or, promoting male genital mutilation instead of fighting it. And so on, so on. His "philantrophy" sets back what he touches about as badly as his "contributions" in the software world.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Excuse the selective quoting, but:
By the time a textbook hits the market it's already a year or three out-of-date. [...] It would need to be[...] organized to match standardized curriculum,
I think those things are somewhat in opposition. If you're at the level of standardised cirricula, then you're teaching intro level or a bit above. Anything much higher doesn't have standardised cirricula. On that note, most things that are intro level don't change fast enough to be out of date in three years (not everything, but most).
On another note, textbooks don't need to be matched to a cirriculum. At uni the lecturers often gave a list of books they thought were useful if you wanted to learn outside of lectures. The cirriculum wasn't organised around those books (or vice versa). And sometimes books are just plain useful for learning stuff, for example, I love my copy of Horowitz & Hill and NR.
On the other hand, a dig in the eye wit ha sharp stick would be a better bet than some of the things that pass for textbooks, especially at the mass eucation level.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Actually, I think it depends on the market. The basic knowledge that a child needs in a developing country can usually fit in one text book. That is math, read/writing, basic science, and history. This text book can be printed on waterproof paper and can last for decades.
In modern schools the text book has gone obsolete. I remember roaming the halls in high school and college with pounds of fat ass books on my back. Right now on my desk I have whole classes of books on my android tablet. It weights 1/2 pound, maybe.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
“Textbooks are becoming obsolete,” says a dropout whose only claim to fame is being in the right place at the right time and having no scruples and not minding fucking everyone over to pocket more and more ill-gotten gains he never should have had his grimy paws on, from the pushing of a demonstrably inferior product using FUD and strong-arm tactics that should have triggered the use of the RICO ACT.
Fucker should be in jail, and Misrofuck should have been broken up, and required to open source all their code, so people could find all the probably deliberately planted bugs they've been using for decades, compromising their own customers’ safety and security, just for the sake of their own goddamned motherfucking bottom line. Never forget.
In sum, fuck Bill Gates, and fuck Microsoft.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.