The school system of the future will be based on "digital nervous systems" that combine Internet connections, e-mail systems and integrated databases while drawing together students, teachers, parents and administrators, according to Bill Gates.

To further this goal of connected networks, Microsoft is working with other educational software makers and vendors to promote a common platform so software designed for K-12 school applications will be compatible with one another, Gates said.

The Microsoft chairman presented his vision of the future at the American Association of School Administrators' annual conference.

Technology tools will allow everyone involved or interested in their local school districts to easily find what programs are being offered, how individual schools are performing, and what needs the schools have," Gates said.

At the same time, teachers can use this "digital nervous system" to essentially bring the rest of the world to their classrooms, he said.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to this goal is the fact most schools systems use a variety of software programs for different tasks, and many of these programs can't share data with each other, Gates said.

Schools are losing time and money by having to compile and analyze data from a number of sources because of this incompatibility.

This problem is being addressed through the Schools Interoperability Framework, a project involving Microsoft and 18 other software firms to set compatibility guidelines for educational software.

Software programs designed under SIF guidelines can be used by K-12 schools to share data and work together.

"Having the Schools Interoperability Framework as an accepted K-12 specification is a big step forward for both the educational software industry and schools," Gates said. "With software applications designed to talk to each other, school administrators will have easier access to information that supports the important decisions they make every day."