BILL GATES 2

BILL GATES 2

Yes, I think virtual reality can make things more engaging. And there are certain things where you have more of a sense—even if you can't, say, build a car in the virtual world, you can sit there and put the pieces together and almost feel like you're doing far more than would be practical in the real world.

There's a lot of pedagogy about understanding the science and the math (principles) that really won't change much just because we put it in a virtual reality framework.

School is always about motivation. The material has been in the textbooks for a long time. In some subject areas, it hasn't even changed that much. If we can use it to draw people in, then that's incredibly valuable.

I'm just starting this for some of the videos I do—like where I go out to a refugee camp or to a developing country, to actually make a virtual reality movie. So people actually have a sense so they can see what it was like and look around and feel it.

And yes, we see it as we're creating those early stage things. We see a lot of engagement. And so combining that with the underlying concepts and not just having it be a distraction.

In learning science, there are a lot of things about—you make things too animated, too colorful, things like that—it often distracts from what you're really trying to get done, which is the attention to a few basic concepts. So I'm sure we'll be able to abuse virtual reality as well as we have ANY new technology that's out there.

I do think in terms of design, lots of engineering things, there's lots of places where it will play a practical role and hopefully draw people in.

And the cost—particularly where you're just taking the cellphone and repurposing that—we won't have to wait a whole decade before the accessibility is there for the lower-end versions of this. The higher-end versions—having an environment where you spend the $500-$1,000 and have it as a shared device—we should have that in a lot of locations as well. 

QUESTION:

One of the things I most admire about you and Melinda are that you’re proactive. You’re avid visitors. You visit schools. You’ve talked about some of them a number of times already. You visit schools. You visit universities. What’s the key takeaway you’ve seen in the most recent period in terms of your visits? What are you hearing from educators on the ground that you’re incorporating into your work?

BILL GATES 
Well, it’s been very interesting to learn about who online (learning) is working for. And so far, a lot of the people who are engaged online are more of these adult students who are tougher because their scheduling is more difficult, but they’re easier because they come back for a reason. That is, they’re self-selected that, “OK I want to become a nurse.” “I want to get this engineering degree.”

And so, online, because it fits into that time flexibility and because they’re willing to persevere—that’s been the initial audience that that’s worked well for.
But there are people now, including ASU, who are using it for other cohorts. And they’re taking the very latest, which is far more engaging content than we’ve had in the past, and trying to make it work for everyone.
I think in education, there’s two types of visits you can do. When you get discouraged and don’t think that anything can happen—then you’ve got to go visit KIPP or Green Dot, or High Tech High, or Summit, and see classrooms—or Rocket Ship, which actually is doing some very interesting things.
Go to one where it all really came together: great teachers, a new approach, and you get reminded, “Wow—if we could do this for every student this would be phenomenal!” Then if you ever think, “Oh boy! This is great.” Then go and visit a college that has a 19 percent completion rate or go to an inner-city high school and get a sense of the disengagement that’s there and the amount of resources that’s just going to make sure that the environment is secure.
And so we have plenty of opportunity to see both of those. I do more visits to the ones that are doing well, because those are the best practices we want to spread.
My most recent trip this fall was to Appalachia and I thought that would be a mix. But because Kentucky has invested in their schools over the last 10 years, what we saw was mostly uplifting. These are public schools, very low-income kids, and the way those communities have come together around some of the new curriculum, better professional development, was really inspiring. So that gives you maybe a year or two of motivation you need to do it even more.