Photo by Lyndsey TaylorBill Gates speaks at the closing keynote at SXSWedu at the Austin Convention Center March 7.
Photo by Lyndsey TaylorBill Gates speaks with a panel on emerging technology in classrooms, personalizing the learning experience and more at SXSWedu March 7.
Educators are on the cusp of being able to bring more technology into the classroom, and some risk-takers are making inroads when it comes to digital learning, Bill Gates told SXSWedu attendees during his keynote speech March 7.
"Just like in health where you either reduce the deaths or you don't, in this space, we either improve the quality of education—in terms of graduation rates, math and reading scores—or we stay flat, like we have in the last few decades," he said. "A lot hangs in the balance."
Gates founded Microsoft and is co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a grant-making foundation supporting initiatives in education, world health and population, and community giving in the Pacific Northwest.
He explained the power of the digital platform will only continue to grow, and technology that can recognize voices, handwriting and visual cues will be used to improve education software. In public education, many discussions have focused on whether students should bring their own technology devices to use in the classroom or whether schools should provide technology to established homogenized usage. Gates said both methods will be tried and will likely result in a "hybrid" approach.
