Bill Gates offers another $20 million in Education bribes: this time for "online learning"

[Hannah Bell]

http://voices.allthingsd.com/20101011/gates-foundation-offers-20-million-in-education-tech-grants/?mod=ATD_rss

Because the reason students aren't graduating is they don't use enough microsoft products.

[tridim]

1. Unrec for dumping on philanthropy.

WTF?

[mike_c]

4. +1

well, actually I suppose that's -1 'cause I unrec'd too.

[mike_c]

6. self delete-- replied in the wrong place....

[Canuckistanian]

5. You call what Gates is doing PHILANTHROPY?

Whatever, dude.

[tridim]

8. Yes.

Do you not own a dictionary?

[Canuckistanian]

14. As a matter of fact, I do

I looked up Gates' actions under MARKET SHARE, not philanthropy.

[tridim]

16. Gates works for a charitable foundation.

The foundation is not publicly traded.

[Canuckistanian]

24. And he gets ZERO tax write-offs, right?

Some "philanthropy". It's a scam that ALL "charitable founders" enjoy. I wish I had enough money to start one.

[mike_c]

26. you don't want tax deductions for charitable giving?

For every Bill Gates who deducts his charity work, there are a thousand mike_c's who do the same. Why would you want to discourage rewarding charity?

[Canuckistanian]

30. Stop being obtuse. I have nothing against charity or rich people giving to charity

What I object to are THE STRINGS which are attached to "charity" such as this.

If he's so damned concerned about education, why doesn't he give DIRECTLY to impoverished school boards - with ZERO stipulations where the money is to be spent? Or teacher's colleges?

Wake up, my friend. You education system is being transformed into a series of money-making businesses and squeezing OUT the teaching professionals and traditional local public participation..

Would YOU contribute to such a "charity"?

[proud2BlibKansan]

34. + a gazillion

[HughMoran]

38. -12 brazillion

take that, hedgehog :rofl:

[Greyhound]

39. "There are none so blind as those, that will not see"

This is one of those.

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. LOL this is far from philanthropic

[tridim]

15. Is that response based on the BS post title or the actual article?

Or do you also not know the definition of philanthropy?

[proud2BlibKansan]

35. What Canuckistanian said

[Kajsa]

23. +1

:thumbsup:

[Donnachaidh]

37. yeah -- he's NOT going to benefit from *online learning* is he?

philanthropy my ass. Or do you need a map drawn for you? :sarcasm:

[Starry Messenger]

2. What could possibly go wrong?

[pnwmom]

3. Yuk. n/t

[mike_c]

7. online learning works just as well on any platform or browser....

There's nothing inherently wrong with online, distributed education. It has its special challenges, as well as its rewards. Trying to translate course material directly from a traditional classroom face-time format is often not very successful, and that's likely the source of many students' distaste for it if they've had a bad experience. I have colleagues who teach wonderful online courses, and colleagues who teach dismal ones. Although all of my own courses are traditional in the sense that they all revolve around weekly classroom and lab sessions, they are also at least partly hybrid in that all include online components, including delivery of instruction and assessments online.

Don't fear technology. Learn to use it effectively.

[WinkyDink]

9. I'm sure Gates has no ulterior motive.

[proud2BlibKansan]

Ya think?

LOL

[mike_c]

25. I'm not sure it matters, and if the money does some good...

...then I say more power to him. Like I said, online coursework isn't platform or browser dependent. I use few Microsoft products in my own course design. It might be instructive to list the major tools I use:

OS: I use Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 7, and Linux platforms.

Planning: Open source FreeMind, Thunderbird

Document production/formatting: Open source OpenOffice, Adobe Acrobat Pro

Text editor: Open source jGrasp, EditPlus2

Art, image creation and manipulation: Xara 6, Adobe Photoshop (I still use version 7.0)

Data analysis and other math applications: lots, but mainly (open source) R and (proprietary) Mathematica

Presentations: Open source OpenOffice, Slidy, Microsoft PowerPoint (primarily for distribution)

Browser: Open source Firefox

Web design: mostly the old fashioned way, i.e. hand coding

Learning Management System: Open source Moodle

Communications: Quickmail, Gmail, and (proprietary, but not MS) Zimbra

Grade book management: Open source OpenOffice, MicroSoft Excel (for distribution only)

So altogether, there is relatively little need for ANY Microsoft products in the design and delivery of online course work. Several of my office computers run Windows operating systems, but that is certainly not a requirement. I also work on Obuntu Linux computers. I use a few MS Office apps, but mostly for distribution of materials that students need in native file formats, and only then because the MS apps are the most widespread. If the university media classrooms and all my students would install OpenOffice, I'd almost never have any need for MS Office products in my teaching.

[Upton]

10. There's something wrong with giving 20 mil for learning?

The Bill Gates Foundation is alright with me..

[tridim]

17. MS hate does strange things to good people.

[Upton]

19. I've noticed..

[Tatiana]

12. Who needs teachers or instructional professionals?

We'll just sit the kids in front of a computer using the latest Microsoft-licensed educational software. Nevermind the special education students... we'll use the KIPP philosophy to get them to sit down and be quiet.

**Sigh** I'm sure a some students may benefit, but I think about all the special needs students who could really use one-on-one intensive instruction with a literacy specialist that we no longer have due to budget reductions. I wish there were more grants to help the neediest of our children.

[Duchess]

13. I think it's a good idea.

There are very few things that have to be taught by a teacher/professor. A well written book (or ppt presentation/software) can teach more effectively in some cases. Books taught me how to play guitar, brew beer, speak Spanish, and build a stirling engine. A little social interaction/lessons from friends help to speed up the process (especially for guitar and Spanish) but you can get most of the basics from books/internet/software-even some of the social interaction.

The same can be said for most other subject. History, Geography, Social Science, and all of the other classes that I don't remember from high school could have been taught more effectively though alternate means. I've taken college classes online that were far more effective that in class instruction. It is cheaper, more flexible, and self paced. I wish they would have offered more classes electronically. They offer a whole slew of them now.

Sure, there are plenty of topics that require professional guidance (fluid dynamics and organic chemistry, creative writing, yoga, etc work better with a more structured approach) but most subjects don't need a flesh and blood teacher.

This might not work for every student. It might just be beneficial to 10-20%. Let the students that can manage their own schedule take the online courses so that you can get them out of the classroom and let the teachers focus on the students that need their help.

[msongs]

18. remember when apple flooded schools with free/low cost apple II E and macintosh - and then

schools couldnt find software that would work on them instead of windows lol

[Gabi Hayes]

27. Our district had them for two years....not all kids had them, which caused much

rankling, for starters.

myriad problems ensued, among them: broken/'lost-stolen'/non-working boxes chief among them

after two years, it became obvious that it wasn't working, and was stopped.

the BEST part, however, is that the superintendent, who rammed it through, quit her $200K+ job right after that and took a job with......can you guess?

Apple/Mac. surprised?

[stray cat]

20. What have you done to help kids learn? Have you earned the right to slam others who are acting?

Hypocritical unless you are doing something besides collecting a paycheck.

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1911

[apocalypsehow]

28. She posts a lot of OP's on DU - surely that counts more than Gate's 20 million!!!11

:rofl:

[WinkyDink]

33. 39 years in the chalk-board trenches.

[CBR]

21. xtxt... nt

[Kajsa]

22. Sure thing---

and their Global Health program is totally self serving,
ensuring that those who are less fortunate will feel indebted
to use only MS products.
THAT'S the catch!

Holy Crap! :eyes:

[Luminous Animal]

29. Kick for later.

[madrchsod]

31. yes..microsoft for everyone(if you have the cash)

...open source is for slacker kids that just won`t conform to billy`s dream of america...dare i say the world?

i gave you a fucking recommend and dam proud of it!:fistbump:

[and-justice-for-all]

32. I did online learing through the college I go to..

I like it when I was doing it...But you can not take everything online, it just does not work for some subjects.

[jotsy]

36. So last spring, did a couple of gigs as a chaperon for my middle schoolers field trips.

At the end of the day, she introduced me to a couple of substitute teachers who happened to be married to one another, they'd recently relocated from Florida. I got brave and asked flat out.

"Does the department of education really intend to use technology to the extent that they can feel comfortable trying to remove the human equivalent from the process entirely?"

Both agreed that was exactly the agenda they feared.

I refer to it as the U-Scan approach we see at the grocery stores applied in an educational setting. I remember wondering when those registers first started to appear about what happened to the folks that used to do that work. In that setting, perhaps it's the progress of technology. In the school system I see it as a potential disaster. Technology can be a great enhancer, but to lead with and rely on it exclusively speaks volumes as to how much our leaders are willing to short change the future for the sake of making nice with a former pirate of the silicon valley, tyvm. I think about all the anti trust suits and how many markets Mr. Gates has cornered and find his desire to view the public education system as a market to corner on the offensive side.

I rec'd this thread. Sorry to say, it didn't help.

[Greyhound]

40. The microserfs are strong today.

:rofl: and :cry:

Shouting through the hurricane that, surely the good times will return as the land around them is devastated.

[Naturyl]

41. Online learning isn't necessarily bad.

I gave myself a university-quality (or better) education online, for the cost of an Internet connection.

And yes, I'm willing to put that statement to the test in any manner skeptics might wish.

Exploring alternatives to the traditional model of education is not necessarily an evil attempt to deprive kids of an education. I'm not a fan of Bill Gates (by any means), but I think those who see the public school model as the only viable one are pretty narrow-minded.

[geek_sabre]

42. I think its silly to criticize one of the biggest private donors to education in the US

If a self-made tech billionaire wants to use his money to help schools improve technology, then its his perogative. This initiative represents a fraction of a fraction of the global charitable giving of the Gates Foundation.

How does he profit from preventing malaria, HIV/AIDS, TB, etc? How does he profit from helping small farmers increase yields? How does he profit from decreasing water-bourne diseases? How does he profit from providing college scholarships to low-income Americans? How does he profit from supporting programs to reduce family homelessness? How does he profit from getting high school dropouts to college?

This isn't a guy who's http://www.switched.com/2008/06/20/bill-gates-leaving-his-fortune-to-charity-not-his-kids/">planning to die with all of his money in a safe deposit box. He's already said he's giving ALL of his money to charity, not his family. If he profits at all, that just more money for charity.