“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
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Incoming UC Irvine medical students to receive Apple iPads – August 06, 2010
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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
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.