Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates thinks that tablets do not meet the needs of education. Instead, he suggests that a low cost PC would be a better solution as it would allow students to be “highly interactive”.
Gates was asked what changes would be required for tablets to make a difference in education by an interviewer from the Chronicle of Higher Education. In his response, Gates claims that: "Just giving people devices, that has a really terrible track record.”
The difficulty with tablet devices is that “You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher.”
He adds: “It's never going to work on a device where you don't have keyboard-type input. I mean, students aren't there just to read things - they're supposed to actually be able to write and communicate.”
This argument makes more sense when discussing a Kindle or similar ebook reader, but doesn’t seem to take into consideration the availability of apps for tablet devices that offer the user much more than the opportunity to read.
But Gates believes that the PC is a better example of an interactive tool. He says: “This is a lot more in the PC realm and what’s going to be a low cost PC that lets them be highly interactive”.
However, the limiting factor isn’t the device so much as the price of internet access, Gates says. He suggests: “It’ll be interesting to have special policies that let people get access to that.”
The video of the interview is available here, via The Verge.
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Comments received
Mackly said on Thu, 28 Jun 2012
Nice try Bill - but it's not the 1990s any more.
MadAxeManUK said on Thu, 28 Jun 2012
Bill has clearly now heard of this brand new divide which just been released. It is called iPad, it comes from a tiny little start-up company that has something to do with fruit. It is really quite good. AND you can even type on it too.
skmarston494 said on Thu, 28 Jun 2012
I guess Bill does not understand tablets. And M$ has over a decades worth of sales results to prove it.
nowandforever said on Fri, 29 Jun 2012
If a tablet is to be at all useful in the classroom, or even in business, it MUST have:
1) a keyboard
2) a mouse, touchpad or stylus
3) run a OS from Microsoft
Thank you, I'll be here collecting royalty cheques all week...
SwissMac said on Fri, 29 Jun 2012
Gates doesn't get it. With statements like this you can see that without help from his Mummy to get the contract to develop an OS for IBM he'd have been mo more than a minor league player - he certainly doesn't seem to be either very bright, or terribly imaginative.
Of course, what he's really saying is - we can't make money out of this sector, we don't think our device is going to do well, so we'll rubbish the whole sector and spread the usual MS FUD.
Plonker.
RealSting said on Sun, 01 Jul 2012
I was totally amazed at Mr Gates statements in that video! How could such a person be so wrong!
- Of course you can be interactive on a tablet.. look at the iPad.. Of course you can communicate, Keyboards are BACKWARDS steps especially when it comes to education as teachers and educators have been trying to wean kids off a keyboard so that can learn to WRITE! There is a plethora of writing type apps for the iPad which mimic for more closely the pen/paper and provide huge interactivity, from embedding video/audio, and linking to cloud services etc. Mr Gates, you need to pick up an iPad or a similar device to see how wrong you are! This is not my opinion, its fact.
RealSting said on Sun, 01 Jul 2012
I was totally amazed at Mr Gates statements in that video! How could such a person be so wrong!
- Of course you can be interactive on a tablet.. look at the iPad.. Of course you can communicate, Keyboards are BACKWARDS steps especially when it comes to education as teachers and educators have been trying to wean kids off a keyboard so that can learn to WRITE! There is a plethora of writing type apps for the iPad which mimic for more closely the pen/paper and provide huge interactivity, from embedding video/audio, and linking to cloud services etc. Mr Gates, you need to pick up an iPad or a similar device to see how wrong you are! This is not my opinion, its fact.
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