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Bill and Melinda Gates: Textbooks Are Becoming Obsolete

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

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?

15 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. No Bill... by blahplusplus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... textbooks are not obsolete. Not everyone on the planet can afford internet especially schools in places where internet is costly/sketchy and teachers need classrooms where kids can focus.

    1. Re:No Bill... by apoc.famine · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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      By the time a textbook hits the market it's already a year or three out-of-date.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
    2. Re:No Bill... by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most textbooks really don't go out of date that quickly. But those who write and publish them obviously have an interest in issuing a new edition every year or two, so parents are forced to buy the new edition at a premium instead of buying one second hand or using a hand-me-down from an older sibling. And of course if textbooks go online, publishers can charge the full price every time even without issuing new editions; they just need to be sure that access to a textbook cannot be transferred between accounts.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    3. Re:No Bill... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.
    4. Re:No Bill... by jwhyche · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.
    5. Re:No Bill... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3

      There are other practical factors as well. Books are bulky, expensive, and just damned heavy to carry. I still don't think the technology for ubiquitous e-readers is cheap enough yet, but when you can buy a new tablet-like reader for the price of a book or two, many of the arguments for paper textbooks will seem a bit less compelling.

      Still, I think "textbooks" as a concept, whether in printed form or electronic, will be with us for a very long time. I don't see why they'd ever become obsolete, as they're purpose-built for a student to read along with and learn in a structured way. What may change is the way we interact with them. Those little quizzes at the back of chapters? How about if a student can interactively take those quizzes right in the textbook (via the reader), and then software suggests a specialized review chapter and tailors future quizzes to help ensure they learn the proper material? That is, you keep drilling the student on the area they're weakest to ensure they learn the material, all with little to no additional work by the teacher.

      This doesn't mean the end of the "textbook", but perhaps just an expansion of how it's organized and a change in how students interact with it. The simple act of a student being able to use a humble hyperlink to look up terms or concepts on the fly could be invaluable. I've already experienced this myself when looking up unfamiliar words with my Kindle.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    6. Re:No Bill... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One year old textbooks...out of date? Please. Fundamental, primary level textbook content hasn't changed significantly in 50 years, current events, and modern (terrible) teaching trends notwithstanding. Tell me, with a straight face, that primary level basic math, life sciences, chemistry, algebra, calculus, geometry, ancient civilizations, literature, etc. etc. etc. have reason to be revamped because of new discovery, in the last ten years, and I'll know you're a sociopath.

      The only reason they update every year is so that problem / answer sheets update, requiring students / districts buy new books, keeping the authors and publishers in perpetual perpetuity. That last bit goes double for college level textbooks, where our understanding of things is more prone to rapid change.

    7. Re:No Bill... by Livius · · Score: 3, Insightful

      textbooks are not obsolete.

      But also not all textbooks are equal. There are excellent textbooks, but I can't say I've come across them frequently. Many textbooks exist merely to slightly re-phrase something from an earlier textbook. Some might not work well with a particular student's learning style. And some textbooks are simply poor quality and do more to obstruct learning than facilitate it.

      There's no reason to limit the understanding of what constitutes a textbook. E-books, YouTube videos, and commercial instructional videos are all valid learning resources. A wealthy philanthropist could easily hire experts to write stable Wikibooks-style textbooks in the public domain to cover, perhaps not all, but quite a lot, of high school and university level curricula. Even considering traditional paper books, a textbook should be considered one tool among many for a student to learn material. Except for the newest, latest developments in a field, a university library will have multiple versions of roughly equivalent textbooks, and seeing explanations from slightly different perspectives can be enormously valuable.

      A phenomenon that I have noticed, both in software and textbooks, is that once a product is more or less optimal, the desire to create new versions requires creating something necessarily sub-optimal. I once went through my university library for a book on a certain topic and I had to find a book with the original discoverer's insight from 1920s, because every book since then had to phrase the subject matter differently and, therefore, poorly. Although non-obvious, it was so simple that there really was only one way to explain it.

      Consider calculus. First-year university calculus hasn't changed in 250 years. Second-year university calculus hasn't changed in 100 years. New textbooks aren't being manufactured because all those previous authors failed in their goal.

      Oracle has a whole business model of making good software, charging for an upgrade that is deliberately broken, then charging to fix the broken version, instead of simply continuing to support software that already works.

  2. Textbooks are an expensive racket. by couchslug · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Textbooks cost far too much for something the student will use briefly. Their prices are a burden to many students. Their weight and bulk are a burden to carry between classes.

    I'm old and should be nostalgic for dead tree media. To hell with that. I can can download, convert and share ebooks for much less money. I can back them up effortlessly.

    Tell me why I should prefer to make publishers rich for an inferior experience. Gates is right on this one.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    1. Re:Textbooks are an expensive racket. by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Textbooks to me seem like a perfect opportunity for "Creative Commons".

      The concepts have hardly changed in decades, why pay the publisher exorbitant rates for a rehash of last year's material?

      With a CC textbook, it could be printed and bound, it could be printed a chapter or excerpt at a time, or it can looked at entirely digitally.

  3. Paper books don't track you by bagofbeans · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thanks, I'll stay away from ebooks that phone home where I stopped, started, how long I stayed on a page, whether I re-read it, what time I read... and then sell to advertisers continuous analyses of me based on that.

  4. Bill Gates still operates Microsoft, apparently. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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)

  5. issues with electronic versions by e**(i+pi)-1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, one can question physical textbooks. I avoid them also as much as possible but there are still various issues with electronic texts: 1. Loss of control: Even with free versions of books or videos or resources, they can disappear at any moment. How many electronic resources which were available 20 years ago are available still now? I myself have the habit of keeping copies of everything I see electronically which I like because it can be pulled at any moment. Books don't just disappear. You can still read them in 50 years if they are converted first into a industry independent format. 2. Long term backup: Having a private library however requires to have a good backup system, decentralized because one can not trust any service in the long run. I'm old enough to have seen many things come and go, terms of services change and it is only 25 years now, that we teach and distribute online (i had my first course websites for classes in 1994 and still have all these resources online, but how many things from 25 years ago are still there? The biggest shock for me was the pull of google video to youtube. It can well be that in 10 years, youtube is sold to an other company, or only available behind a paywall. Services like Kahn academy etc, we will have to see how long they are still free. 3. Privacy: Even in the ``free textbook movement", one has started to look for ways to mine the information like tracking students readings. Like in e-books, the information what a reader reads, how fast and possibly annotates is used or sold. I personally do try to avoid such resources, because it is as if somebody constantly looks you over the shoulder. How long did I read what? What do I read? When do I read? Where do I read? This information is all given away for free to the reader. I know that even well intended projects for free textbooks start having students to register (yes it is free), but all this information is kept somewhere and evaluated. Who is naive enough to believe that this information stays confined. We have seen massive data breaches recently. This by the way is the same also for online newspapers. I have concerns with being tracked all the time telling an anonymous entity what articles I read when and how and from where. 4. Screen and write technology: Electronic reading has become better with the emergence of tablets and good computer screens. It is still not there. Annotation with pen still beats annotation by electronic pens which can be sluggish and depends on industry controlled technology which changes still frequently. We will eventually get there, once the screen technology has the resolution, speed and comfort of paper. It is a matter of time only but it is not there. The tablets of today also run on operating systems where one has lost control. Even well intended systems start to bug you to log in. Sorry. I keep all my library in a gold old fashioned directory tree which I'm sure I can read also in 10 years, which I can print out if needed and annotate with an old fashioned pen if needed. 5. Proprietary formats: One of the biggest problems with electronic reading is proprietary formats. I don't know how many different reading systems (apps) i have tried and which were abandoned or then bought by a big company which then only allows to use the service while registered. The best systems for writing on a tablet or screen are all proprietary and could disappear any moment. It is essential for example to have wrist protection technology when writing and drawing on a tablet. The pens have become great already, but the apps continue to disappear and appear. There were apps I liked which do not exist any more. Come on. If I write something, I need it to be available not only the 3 years of the life span of the app, I need to be able to read and modify it in 20 years. I have still documents written in software written by companies which disappeared or were bought by others. If the document was exported as a PDF and put on my own machine, yes, I can still read it. Other things have disappeared once one does not pay any more for the service.

  6. still better then DRM loaded E-books with time out by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    still better then DRM loaded E-books with time outs in them. Unless they make the E-books about 60-70% less then real ones.

  7. UTTER BALDERDASH FROM A COMPUTER DESIGNER! by CAOgdin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let me share a story: As a child, in Columbus Ohio, I had to walk one-mile each way between home and school, from 1946. I'd been admitted to First Grade at the age of 5, because my mother taught me to read, write and do simple math. That meant that I was always ahead of the class, so sat in back, so I wouldn't look so bored.

    But, there was an upside: Every day, I could take a two-block detour and visit the local Public Library. So, every day, I'd leave two books I'd taken out the day before, and pick up two more to occupy myself in the back of the room the next school day. I read a lot of books, and learned a lot (and a lot more I've forgotten), as I worked my way through the Dewey Decimal system. And, one day, I carried Frederick Terman's "On Radio Engineering" to class...and was transfixed. There I was, at age 6, learning how my mom's radio worked! I went back home and tweaked the dials on the huge (vacuum tube) radio, finding out how the controls actually changed stations, and how tone controls could help me listen to far-away stations! It set me on a path of fascination with what became to be known as the field of "electronics." I worked in a TV Repair Shop at the age of 12, played with ZJ17 (GE) transistors at 15, went into the Air Force at age 19, and wrote a published article predicting the likelihood of the emergence of the "computer on a chip" some three months before Intel announced it.

    Today, as I sit (age 78) in front of my computer, I never had the benefit of all those "electronic" substitutes for reading...to this very day, I look forward to reading my weekly edition of "New Scientist" (published in London), to stay abreast of information.

    I don' need no STEENKIN' "video" from which to learn. What I did learn was how to DO IT MYSELF by soldering wires together, debugging the arrangement of electron flows until it worked, and then having the satisfaction of educating myself in the bargain.

    There is joy in finding out, not having it explicitly explained. During my career, people have asked me, what 'College did you go to?' I have factually responded, "I've taught at several universities, I've been on faculty of a few...but I've never ATTENDED a College or University (save a few abortive attempts, lasting no more than a month before I became bored, relearning what I already knew.)

    Having to read, at one's own pace; being able to go back a few pages to find that earlier illustration for guidance; having the freedom to pace myself to MY learning rate, are all benefits of books. I fear Television (which I still enjoy as entertainment) and Video in general is just a way to sell a product, not ENGAGE the participant in the learning experience.

    Just one old woman's view...