“Bill Gates never finished college, but he is one of the single most powerful figures shaping higher education today,” Jeffrey R. Young reports for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “That influence comes through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, perhaps the world’s richest philanthropy, which he co-chairs and which has made education one of its key missions.”
“The Chronicle sat down with Mr. Gates in an exclusive interview Monday to talk about his vision for how colleges can be transformed through technology,” Young reports.
The Chronicle: 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?
MacDailyNews Note: Microsoft did not release their Surface tablets last week. They claim they’ll be doing so “this fall.”
Bill Gates: 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.
Full interview here.
MacDailyNews Take:
As always, Bill Gates is the anti-Steve Jobs: no vision, no taste, and no idea what’s really happening.
Giving students Windows tablets has a really horrible track record, but iPads in classroom are gold medal winners:
• Student math scores jump 20% with Apple iPad; transforms classroom education – January 20, 2012
• OSU study finds Apple’s powerful iPad decreases expenses, increases productivity – May 3, 2011
• Apple’s revolutionary iPad dramatically helps Illinois autistic students – October 15, 2010
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Illinois elementary school buys 650 iPads for students, 70 MacBook Airs for teachers – June 26, 2012
San Diego Unified School District buys 26,000 Apple iPads; one of the largest K-12 iPad deployments in U.S. – June 26, 2012
Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose, California to get 1,800 Apple iPads (with video) – March 4, 2012
Madison, Wisconsin schools buy 1,400 Apple iPads – using Microsoft’s money – January 28, 2012
Colorado school goes all-Apple; iPads in classrooms spur student engagement to new heights – January 24, 2012
Apple reinvents textbooks with iBooks 2 for iPad – January 19, 2012
Schools expect iPads to outnumber personal computers in next five years – October 31, 2011
Growing number of U.S. schools embrace Apple’s revolutionary iPad as learning tool – January 4, 2011
Rising generation of iKids slipping Apple iPads instead of books into school backpacks – December 14, 2010
Steve Jobs met Obama to talk education, energy, job creation – October 22, 2010
University of Leeds gives medical students textbooks on Apple iPhones – September 29, 2010
N.J. schools explore using Apple iPads as teaching devices – September 22, 2010
Students in four California school districts trade textbooks for Apple iPads – September 09, 2010
Scottish school becomes first ‘iSchool’ where Apple’s revolutionary iPad replaces pencil and paper – August 31, 2010
Back to school personal computer sales slow except for Apple’s Mac – August 11, 2010
Incoming UC Irvine medical students to receive Apple iPads – August 06, 2010
New Hampshire school giving Apple iPads to incoming freshmen – June 15, 2010
iPad takes off as flight school teaching tool – May 12, 2010
California’s Monte Vista Christian School first to use Apple iPads in classroom – April 21, 2010
Seton Hill University to give new Apple MacBooks and iPads to every full-time student in fall 2010 – March 30, 2010
Kodiak Alaska school district to bid on upgrading to Apple MacBooks, iPads – March 24, 2010
Apple offering discounted iPad 10-packs for education – March 22, 2010
KeyBookshop has over 18,000 educational e-books ready and waiting for Apple’s iPad – March 16, 2010
Bill Gates couldn’t tie his own shoes without Balmer’s help.
Worthless POS.
Let’s be grown up when we criticize. “POS?” No- just an over-rated non-visionary.
Would ‘Bill Gates is a “really horrible” person’ be grown-up enough?
It depends on your ethics. If it is ok to be a person that goes for the win at any cost, then Bill is not a really horrible person. He is just very effective at winning no matter who or what it hurts.
@auramac
Please don’t sieze upon the Internet as your opportunity to practice you *enlightened liberalism* if it means marching in here and presuming to dictate to others how they may think and express their thoughts. “POS” means nothing to 3rd graders (as if there are any of those here). It’s up to the imagination to fill in the blanks, and when one does so, one is exposed to speech everyone has heard a thousand times starting in fourth grade, if not earlier.
At least you recognize attempting to be civil and mature as a liberal idea. The conservatives would rather act like 12 year olds.
I’d say I’m more of a proto-crypto porker.
What utter hypocrisy. When Steve and Laurene Jobs argue that technology alone is insufficient to improve the education system MDN and it’s horde of drones can’ t help but heap praise on their insightful analysis. But when Bill Gates (another college drop out like Steve Jobs) says essentially the same damn thing MDN and the drone can’t help but hurl insults. You people are pathetic.
I think you are either missing or ignoring the salient point where Gates says the technology needs to be PC based hardware with a keyboard. The first part of Gates statement is true, the second part is self-serving tripe.
Agreed
iPads can be equipped with a physical keyboard, available from various manufacturers in different form factors, if the touch keyboards are somehow holding students back …
Oh, so when Appple promotes the iPad sans keyboard this isn’t self serving, too?
I agree with you on that first part. I agree with Bill that it is not enough just to give out some tools and expect miracles. I also agree that students do not just read and that input is required. How to input may be subject to what is the easiest and what is supported. On the Surface you WOULD nee a keyboard, on the iPad a virtual keyboard may be enough. In a classroom you could not use Siri as it works today because of the many voices talking simultaneously, but perhaps that can change in time if Siri can distinguish voices and understand one students quiet whisper or better yet, “read” thoughts / brainwaves.
I think it proves that Bill is not an visionary because he thinks about the future with the present in his mind. He did build a big company though, most of us could not do that, even if we were to allow ourselves to hurt others in the process….
plus 1,000,000,000,000
They wrote a song about him!
I’m okay with POS.
“And it’s never going to work on a device where you don’t have a keyboard-type input. ”
Isn’t that pretty much what Ballmer said about the iPhone too ?
It would be hard to use a device with no keyboard-type input. Good thing the iPad has a software keyboard and optional hardware keyboards. What keyboard-less device is Gates talking about anyway?
And upon what data does he base this opinion?
Balmers idata-LOL
the windows tablet history.
Until the iPad came along, bill was correct. Tablets were worthless in the classroom.
I still love the school that bought iPads for the classroom with gates foundation money lol.
What a disingenuous self-serving a-hole. The only tablets that have a terrible record are YOURS Bill! Can we hate this guy more than we already do for his nerdiocrity and undeserved standing in the tech community? Just supply schools with your ill-gotten Gates Foundation money to buy iPads and then SHADDUP!!
Data from ten years ago. Data sometimes gathered during a time when the iPad did not exist and he was still trying to peddle those worthless XP tablets and their styluses. Anyone here actually try to use one of those craptolas? And, seriously, when in tablet mode, the keyboard was unreachable. All you could use was a virtual keyboard and the stylus. Totally craptastic.
Blinders on, eh Mr. Gates? Talk about a reality distortion field.
Or, well, perhaps it’s that experience with *your* tablets has been horrible.
And, yes, of course it’s true that you should change curriculum to take advantage of ubiquitous access and teachers benefit from some training since the technology is almost assuredly newer than their training.
But iPads in education have a tremendous track record.
I agree with what Bill said about the curriculum and teachers needing to change too. But he’s wrong about tablets. What is with Microsoft’s obsession with physical keyboards and trying to turn tablets into laptops? They said the same thing about phones lacking keyboards and look how that turned out… any phone with a keyboard now is considered DOA.
“What is with Microsoft’s obsession with physical keyboards and trying to turn tablets into laptops?”
It’s because Microsoft didn’t invent it and can’t compete with it. Simple as that. Bill Gates blinders are intentional and fake.
Yes Microsoft and Bill Gates doggedly push only what they know – from last century, and desperately try to fool everyone to stop looking at that man behind the curtain. Despite everything being shown contrary. Nobody wants to see the company they started dying in their lifetime but at this rate both Ballmer and Gates will experience that pleasure, same as the ex-Twin CEO’s will at RIM.
To correct one thing: Microsoft did NOT ‘release’ the Surface last week – its VAPOURWARE, and does not exist as a product you can buy.
Why do we put up with these delusional statements as fact?
That’s right—it DOESN’T EXIST. Another moron treating Microsoft’s holograms as actual objects. Talk about Reality Distortion Fields! Idiots and tools, all of them!
I released noxious gas yesterday. I did not have to excuse myself because it was VAPOR and as such does not yet exist.
The smell of that noxious gas however matches the Surface in anticipation and execution.
That is really quite sad. He is no longer head of Microsloth. He is in charge of a charity claiming to care about education yet he is purposely lying about the potential for iPad and like devices
Geez…why do people still listen to this guy. He RARELY has been correct with his insight into the future of emerging technologies. If it was up to Microsloth, we’d all still be using DOS!
I klnow I was thinking how I’;ve been using an iPad for 2 years now and I wouldn’t have it at all if I depended on Microsoft. Scary that those in the position to give us improvements in tech are blindsided by the need to keep a monopoly going and treading water as long as they can. We are fortunate that Apple doesn’t mind shooting itself in the foot on the occasion to move forward the technology. A necessary component in the modern age. Change, what a concept!
Yeah, what was it that he said back in the 80’s?
“I think 128K is enough memory for anyone”
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think that was the gist of it
640k i think it was.
So you are saying that your own generation that had no computers could not learn? We had a pencil and paper and did just fine – I think that the tablet is a great way as it just gets out of your way and lets you learn..
What “The Surface tablet was just released by Microsoft last week” no it was not it was announced last week. Credibility in question rite out of the gate. Gates forgets iPad has a keyboard. How much is the foundation giving to education without Microsoft string attached.
Bill Gates….. Used car salesman…
I make PCs… you need a PC…..
Nuff said. lol
Actually a thought to those above…. The Surface has not been released yet. However, think how humorous to reply when someone says its been released…….. “and sales are zero so far. ” Just a thought.
Bill the idiot doesn’t realize that the iPad form factor and UI is FAR MORE INTERACTIVE than a piece of shit Windows box with a “keyboard-style” input. That inherent fact is the sole reason why the iPad is so popular over such a wide range of applications.
I can’t believe how stupid people are – even the supposed smart ones like Gates
Shocker… Gates defending the need to have Windows in the classroom because it has a keyboard. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DON’T TOUCH THE KEYBOARD. Just look at it. It’s nice, is it not?”
Last time I checked, you could create and communicate with an iPad. It does have a keyboard. What is this guy thinking?
Bill’s made some sensible comments about education in the past concerning content, curriculum and expectations. Being close-minded about the future if tablets in schools is just silly. Hey Bill, 1982 called, they want their keyboard back!
He is really not closed minded. He is merely explaining his rational for prohibiting any of the money from his charity to be used for the purchase of iPads.
I just communicated from my iPad
Bomber and Gates. The only pair to beat three of a kind.
That’s because previous tablets were Windows based.
BTW, the iPad has a keyboard input — it’s called a virtual keyboard.
Gates’ response sums up the vision of the company he founded in a nutshell. Hanging on to the past, which made them what they are today, and refusing to look to the future has created the now rudderless ship that is Microsoft.
Not only rudderless, but lacking a mast, else Captain Ballmer would have lashed himself to same, to prevent following the sirens’ call to doom. As it is, the ship is heading straight for the rocks.
It’s shocking that the comments here reflect the education system here. There is no track record for the iPad in the classroom. There is no measurable standard to say that the iPad has been successful. There is tremendous potential for the platform. But, the tools are only now emerging to integrate this technology in the way that we teach students. I’m hoping for success. It’s too early to tell. And finally, no, a keyboard is not the input device that will differentiate the tablet as a learning tool.
The whole crazy of this is that the keyboards that the Surface tablet will have are so thin that there is practically no benefit of using one compared to using a keyboard on a screen (tactile feel etc).
Seems odd to me that these writers, including MDN themselves, don’t write enough about 3rd party keyboards already available for the iPad. MDN should have a take on every news article that talks about this “Surface” with 3rd party keyboard options for the iPad. There’s plenty of them to talk about.
“Bill Gates” and “visionary” do not belong in the same sentence, except to show a contrast between the two.
It may be “revisionary”
I think the word atavistic is more apt.
No Bill, for 11 years YOUR DESIGN of tablets and software has failed, Apple has proven time and again with innovation with design and a great operating system including the best Service, you can succeed!
Problem is Bill, you didn’t have a prototype to steal its software and design this time, as you did with the first Mac.
If it wasn’t for his constant rewriting of history, he would be lost, really Bil G. is to far shoved up his Ivory Tower to see the real truth.
Steve said it correctly:
“The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”
“I am saddened, not by Microsoft’s success — I have no problem with their success. They’ve earned their success, for the most part. I have a problem with the fact that they just make really third-rate products.” [Steve Jobs, 1996]
“Microsoft tablets in the classroom have a really horrible track record”
There. Fixed it for you, Mr Gates.
After 10 years since releasing a tablet…Gates still doesn’t get it. Today’s kids burn on the iPad’s keyboard…it’s us older folks who have to adapt…I’m getting better and faster at it and liking it better now, but I was programmed on an IBM Selectric and expect finger feedback and a sound. Today’s kids don’t expect finger feedback and burn.
I would at least like a tiny click sound.
M$ is delusional and super late to the party…the bandwagon has already passed and they missed the opportunity. HP and RIMM were earlier than M$ but were still late. M$ will burn through billions trying to catch up. HP was smart. If you’re down by 20 with 2 minutes to go, you take out your best players to keep them from unnecessarily getting hurt.
You’re in luck. iOS does have little click sounds on the keyboard, since its original release.
I thought this was an ancient quote. He’s Really out of touch, no pun intended…
Uh, Bill, you and Microshaft lost. Get over it!
His moment of glory long past, the dumbass refuses to STFU and get out of the way.
They are in complete denial over in Redmond and it would appear to extend to Gates. I know a guy who works on video production for M$ and he and his crew have to agree to no Apple products on set to get the work. They resort to sleeves to cover the MBPs and sneaking out back to use their iPhones. Their whole industry is Mac-based and M$ deals with it by burying their heads in the sand.
Seriously?! The boys in third grade used to hide their comics in brown paper schoolbook covers.
Is it just me of does Bill Gates seem clueless?
Bill Gates is a world-class pimp!!!
Bill, Bill, and For Gawds sake- Bill!!
Have you yet to see the train rolling straight for your dumb arse with horn blasting and light glaring? But, hold that that and position and watch what happens when an Apple Bullet Train collides with you…
I personally hate writing on my iPad. But that is just me.
It seems strange to me but Gates forgot to mention that if a device has no keyboard is should at least support stylus input (according to his “vision”)
I’ll admit to being old and old-fashioned, because it still seems to me that it would be more efficient to interact creatively with an iPad for text entry if you use a physical keyboard and are able to use the iPad as a display (leaning up on an stand – eyes-free typing, as it were). I have an iPad but no physical keyboard, and I rarely interact with it in any way other than for email, internet browsing, occasional games, and social networking – I find it tedious to do much more than that on it.
But a more important point to this discussion is which mode of use would be more efficient and helpful to students – tablet vs. traditional keyboard/trackpad and screen. Software is key, but I still have to give the nod to the latter. And if I were a school administrator looking to replace old computers in the classroom, on the surface (pun intended), and all other things seeming equal (they aren’t but assume I don’t know any better about OS and never had an iPhone or Apple product), the Surface looks pretty compelling.
Note that I’m playing devil’s advocate here – I’ve been Apple since the 70’s. And if I WERE a K-12 school administrator, I’d be buying mostly mac minis and third-party displays, and maybe a couple of base-model Mac Pros for the heavier lifting. I think the iMac is ecologically and economically as bad as the eMac was, from an upgrade and cost-of-replacement standpoint. If I had a bigger budget, I might add iPads for the students to take home. If I didn’t have enough money for all of that, then they’d get MacBook Airs.
But anyone is welcome to disagree and attempt to re-educate me.
Kids dig iPads. I have a 2 year old grandson that uses his iPad daily. He can type his full name and address on the iPad.
I’m sure when he gets to grade school he’ll have no trouble typing on an iPad.
What does Microsoft bring to the table? Office.
What does Apple bring to the table? Thousands of productivity Apps. Kids books by the bushel. Games to learn math, spelling, history, geography, biology, the list goes on and on.
We should be respectful. After all, there’s going to be an African village somewhere with a large statue of him someday.
you can input on an ipad by:
writing on it with your finger or (third party) stylus
you can write all kinds of alphabets including asian characters like Chinese, Japanese etc.
you can draw or paint
you can type on the soft keyboard or external hard keyboard
with proper software you can input via voice
apps have all kinds of touch input methods via dials, sliders, ‘calculators’, screen controls, interactive charts etc.
you can input via the cameras
you can input with motion via gyroscopes
you can hook up all kinds of third party input devices like microscopes, blood pressure devices etc.
what is Billl smoking?
man he sounds like a dinosaur.
This is like going after an Ant with hammer… Did he just tell everyone in education that Microsoft’s dud of a tablet should not be used in education? Ant verse hammer… Hammer time!
What’s interesting about his requirement that there be a physical keyboard…since having SIRI, I rarely type anything. It’s all voice…obviously, this wouldn’t necessarily work in a classroom full of kids, but for students doing homework, it’s a far better input method than even a hard keyboard.
Did Bill tell Bomber that?
I wish everyone would stop calling Bill Gates a philanthropist, take a close look at what his “charitable organization” actually does and its excessively dismal record and corruption.
It is not a charity origination it is a power and influence brokerage.
It must be eating his Heart out to see Apple’s iPad Dominating and the Majority Consumers Running away from his “POS Virus Infested Garbage of an OS”.
“Hey Bill, Karma is a Bitch”
Betcha his kids had iPods tucked away in the back of their school limo so they wouldn’t have to show up with you know whats.
Cornell University believes everything he says and shoves PC’s down our throat and does it’s best to shut out Macs. Of course Bill just funded a big Tech building here with his and Melinda’s name on it.
Since his departure, he’s become such a non issue. It seems almost a waste of time to interview him about new technology. He was never an innovator nor did he do anything to actually promote new technologies. This article and interview were a waste of time and resources that could have been better spent. Like interviewing roadkill.
Bill gates is irrelevant .he has alot of cash ,so people listen .doesnt mean he knows a damn thing about what he’s talking about .as a song once said ,if your not part of the solution ,then get the hell out of the way .enough said .
Sorry to the mindless potilitcally-driven haters out there, but Bill is actually correct on this one. MDN, like a biased media outlet, takes a snippet of Bill’s sentence and puts it completely out of context, apparently to bait all the haterade comments.
I believe Gates was trying to say that portable device of any kind won’t add much to the learning experience in the classroom compared to desktop machines. I agree, at least through high school. There is no point of having a classroom if the student is supposed to learn on their own little private portable screen, might as well be distance learning from their parent’s basement.
But a classroom can work dramatically better than internet-learning for many students, especially if the only machine(s) in the room are there for demonstrations and, yes, work where every student is assigned highly interactive tasking that requires significant personal instruction.
Portables of any shape or size are needless costly distractions and Bill Gates is not always wrong. Usually, but not always.
Well one out of a thousand love bill, it’s still bullshit.
Microsoft failed at tablets for the past 10-11 years and here comes Bill saying yea, it does suck. Problem is is Microsofts failed attempts suck not Apples.
San Diego school district just purchased 26,000 Apple iPads, not including all the other districts that have adopted Apple’s standard.
So hey let’s just say they suck for only one reason, since Bill says it.
Mike enjoy your little world of closed reality with Bill, he really needs the suck up approach to his irrelevant blabbering.
Speak of mindlesness.
Mike if you would have read the whole write up, it wasn’t written by MDN, it is a direct non edited interview by: Jeffrey R. Young reporter for “The Chronicle of Higher Education.”
Kill the messenger approach doesn’t cut Mike, Gate was direct with what he said, but you seem to want to interprut it your own way.
Talk about putting words in someone’s mouth, you blamed MDN for something they didn’t do then turn around and do it yourself.
Now that’s ironic.
I did read the article, and MDN’s wordsmithed headline does not match the quote.
The follow-up story on how well iPads hold up in primary education and what the cost comparison is to the current teaching method will probably be very interesting to you. The issue isn’t the company behind the portable, but the fact that portables are distractions and subject to greater wear & tear than stationary equipment. But you don’t want to think through this, do you, “Here we go again”, you’d just rather reduce the discussion to political attacks, is that it?
Tech Titan Gates more and more seems like a sideline spectator shill. Certainly living in the heyday past and quite possibly slowly becoming a luddite … Sad.
That said, philanthropy is highly commendable.
Fingers crossed your looking forward to what’s best for the future and set past allegiances aside. But after reading his statement, well, you know and no surprise.
philanthropy is highly commendable
Yes, of course. But there are two problems here:
1) The Gates money was obtained by keeping the majority of the computer community in The Dark Age of Computing. AKA screwing over suckers.
2) The Gates Foundation consistently forces recipients of computer technology awards to use Windows and Office. See #1 above. This perpetuates both The Dark Age of Computing and future sucker money coming into the Gates coffers.
Not good.
Is it me or was a lot of what he said just fluffy, hot emptiness?
My 5 yr. old nephew used an iPad and can identify every state in the union (“all 57?”–Obama), every capital, and every country in Africa.
It’s really odd that Bill Gates was ever considered any kind of futurist. He has been consistently wrong. And yet the HYPE lives on. As ever, I believe history in hindsight will consider him a charlatan and a parasite. Those of us with any kind of sane insight have already figured out that fact.
Gates vision is very limited as usual. Bill still thinks its 1995 and he has never left that vision. Technology has already moved past “his” vision. What Steve left us is technology would allow us to create and learn in new ways never thought. If Bill thinks that requires a keyboard then why not replace a math course with Excel and English with word. Remember he “never” finished college so how hi do you really think his value in education is. Worse yet how can he even appreciate something he never went through. There is a reason degrees and college matter “Billy”. Its a commitment to learn not simply steal.
As someone who works in higher education and takes classes in higher education, let me state this: just because ANYONE (Apple, Microsoft, etc.) has a tablet (laptop, notebook, etc), doesn’t make them king of the hill. It means there is simply a tool available for an educator to…(surprise!) educate! It does not mean a student will take to it like a duck to water, nor does it mean it will be undoing of a student’s education. It is up to the instructor to properly use this tool to augment a person’s education. I’ve said it before, and I’ll shout it from rooftops as necessary: technology is merely a tool, not a means to an end.