Bill Gates greeted by standing ovation from….teachers?
Patti Freudenberg works for the Clear Creek Independent School District in the Houston-Galveston area, where she is the "Teaching American History Grant Specialist," currently leading groups of history teachers to historical sites around the US on a Department of Education grant. Clad in leopard print, she arrived bright and early Thursday morning to sit in the very front row of Bill Gates' closing keynote at the South by Southwest Edu conference. "It's a hero worship thing," she said. "I don't know what he's going to say. Hopefully he'll talk about new ways we can use technology. Because education is changing so much--we're finally moving from the traditional classroom to something that's more technology rich and media rich. We’re reaching these kids where they actually are instead of what we had in the 1960s." She's seen this in her own schools, where pilot programs are bringing iPads into the classroom, making it easier to incorporate more primary source documents and multimedia into social studies classes. Gates' wide-ranging keynote, greeted by a standing ovation, didn't disappoint Patti. He argued that the market for educational innovation is reaching a tipping point--although he
