Bill Gates Pushes Classroom Technology At SXSWedu.

The Huffington Post (3/12, Llorenz) reports that Microsoft founder Bill Gates, speaking at the SXSWedu conference in Austin, Texas, said, "We currently only direct about 1 percent of total R&D [research and development] dollars toward edtech...our investments don't match our mandate." The Post adds, "Gates believes education technology, facilitating personalized, interactive learning, is key to closing the achievement gap dividing Latino, African American and poor students from the rest of the country, and preparing all American students for the future of global competition with the rest of the world."

 

Speaker Stresses Equalizing Influence Of Classroom Technology.KQED San Francisco (3/14, Barseghian) reports online about the importance of electronic devises in the classroom, adding, "Access to the Internet connects kids to all kinds of information - and for low-income students especially, that access has the power to change their social structure by allowing them to become empowered and engaged, said Michael Mills, a professor of Teaching and Learning at the University of Central Arkansas during a SXSWEdu session last week." The piece quotes Mills saying, "For minorities and for low-income students who have these devices, it might be their only way to access the Internet, to get information about their own health, access to social media. And they're using that as the agent to change their social structure."