Recap from the First Official EdSurge SF Edtech Meetup

Events

Recap from the First Official EdSurge SF Edtech Meetup

By Tony Wan     Jan 29, 2013

Recap from the First Official EdSurge SF Edtech Meetup

CHOMP. That's the sound of our teacher sharks going at three brave and willing entrepreneurs at our very first official meetup, "Teacher Tank: Can your company stand the test?" Many, many thanks to the 150+ who stopped by to share this most historical of moments with us!

The audience was treated to a sweet preview of what GlassLab has in the works with a classroom-friendly version of SimCityEDU from Jessica Lindl and Michael John. And Gregory MacBeth struck a chord with the teacher panel as he explained how Bloomboard aimed to solve the teacher support and development problem. But the evening, and both audience and panelists' choice awards--went to Meograph's Misha Leybovich, the "accidental edtech entrepreneur" who shared the story of how teachers became the loudest fans of his storytelling tool--even though that wasn't what he initially had in mind.

The evening was less a shark feeding and more a bountiful feast of ideas and compelling questions from teachers Jamey Everett (fifth grade comprehensive), Rebecca Horowitz (math lead), Meghan Jacquot (English), and John Kittredge (digital literacy & expression).

Some memorable questions from the night:

  • "How do you make it so compelling that I know it's going to make me a better teacher?"
  • "Student choice is really big. The more that students could be designing the problem as opposed to just picking where things go--that'd be really interesting"
  • "If one of the reasons for this is to push students to justify their reasoning through action, we also need a space for them to articulate their reasoning, rather than just judging their action."

Our next meetup will be a townhall style sharing: we invite teachers to share what kind of tools would help them in the classroom -- and for entrepreneurs to share what they're trying to build. We will kick it off with a couple of special guests, but most of the evening will be around sharing and brainstorming. We hope you'll walk away with ideas for new practices -- whether you're a teacher or entrepreneur.

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