Earlier this week in an interview with CNET News Bill Gates spoke about Microsoft’s bid to take over Yahoo. As an educator what I found interesting was Gates’s statement about the value of Yahoo being the staff of Yahoo engineers not Yahoo’s current technologies, market share, or list of advertisers. Click here to read the full transcript of the interview.

Application for Educators
Gates reminds us that technology is very useful, but the people developing and using technology are what is really important. Gates is not interested in buying Yahoo for its current technologies instead he is after what has not yet been developed. Preparing students to be innovators and developers is an important aspect of our jobs as educators. Yes, we need to teach students to use and understand what is already available, but we also need to teach them to think outside the box.