Gates: ‘Innovation can change the world’

Microsoft founder calls on private sector to help expand technology in the classroom.

Technology is a key to bringing personalized education to students and more must be done to get it into the classroom, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said Thursday during his keynote address at the third annual SXSWedu conference.

“Innovation can change the world in a way that your framework is utterly different,” said Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. “The goal we all have here is that the quality of education, the way that we empower teachers to do their job better — to understand what each student needs, to personalize the learning experience, to make the information more relevant to the student — that technology comes along and plays a key role in that.”

Students bringing digital

devices to class.

Teachers sharing lessons on the Internet. Expert educators giving advice online. Education technology can be used to enhance instruction and increase engagement and some of the “great innovators” already are using technology that way, Gates told about 2,400 people at a ballroom at the Austin Convention Center.

“Some of the innovators are in the charter schools where they are very open to try new things in many different areas,” Gates said. “There’s also a lot of public schools, which is very exciting, that have gotten into this as well.”

In Central Texas, the amount of technology varies widely by district.

Several districts encourage students to bring their own smartphones and tablets into school for specific assignments.

A few have put more personal computers and tablets into the hands of their students.

The Eanes school district in fall 2011 gave iPads to juniors and seniors at Westlake High School, expanding the program this year to all high school students, as well as to some in middle and elementary schools.

This school year, the Manor school district doled out 4,000 iPads to teachers and students. Round Rock gave laptops out to freshmen at two high schools.

Gates said school districts shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden alone; society needs to find ways to help them