Bill Gates continues his optimistic vision of education, including that all students will someday use a Tablet PC or its one of its latest iterations, such as the Ultra Mobile PC.
“In fact, we see a day where every student, instead of their textbooks, will simply have their tablet computer connected up to the wireless Internet,” he said. “And so the teacher can customize the material, they can quiz the student. That student can have that tablet with them wherever they go and it’s actually lighter than the textbooks and more flexible, richer in terms of what it can offer.”
Layne offers an intriguing view of using Ultra Mobile PCs in schools. As a student he has read thousands of pages for online classes. As a teacher, he notices some students do not read textbooks or online textbooks with desktops or mobile PCs.
Most (students) do not read textbooks but they will scan a webpage. However, if the assignment asks them to read the webpage, most will not. This might correlate to the number of people I have met over the years who do not read blog postings but only look at the headline and images. There is nothing wrong with this but shows a different approach is necessary to using a digital textbook.
That students do not read textbooks or webpages does not surprise me. I’ll bet most professors, school administrators, and teachers don’t read much more than our students. Just ask yourself, how many textbooks or novels online or in hard copy have you read this week?
Most of the stars in education I know don’t read more than memos, emails, and selected material in order to prepare their own publications. It does disappoint me, and selected reading does limit topics of conversation. (The exceptions are people who read and understand a page rapidly. They may be smarter in that they developed rapid reading skills.)
Addressing a seemingly limited literate student body, education corp, and business market does cost schools and businesses truckloads of money to address problems people make who will not read instructions. The choice about whether to read just means that they either pay now by taking the time to read or pay later in higher taxes for schools and higher prices for consumer products. (I borrowed the pay now or pay later phrase from Loren. He commented about it while we changed shocks on his car yesterday.)
I enjoy reading. I can emerse myself in a research study report or a novel and block out noises and business around me. Reading words, not pictures, charts, and tables requires a different level of concentration from browsing through a library or an online animated story.
I know many teachers as browsers. Some are excellent readers. who say they don’t need to read. They somehow “get” all the information they say they need from browsing.
I share the vision of many people of a Tablet PC for every student and every educator. I wonder if those who do not support this vision also do not read enough to understand why we share this exciting vision.
I hope (that’s a weak proposition!) that Tablet PCs will somehow make reading easier for people willing to take the time to learn something more.
How might we adjust hardware and software to make electronic texts and images more informative as well as more efficient for reading anywhere, anytime about any topic?