Howdy! EdSurge will be reporting from the grand ole state of Texas this week as SXSWedu rolls into action.
SXSWedu promises to be an amazing mashup of educators, entrepreneurism and plain old fun. Companies of all sizes are planning to use this as a launch pad to shout about--yah, you might say amplify--what they're doing.
There will be hands-on activities with tech and likely some intense debates about the role of national databases of student achievement data with the rollout of inBloom. (This Reuters piece is a good warmup.) We'll report on what this means for students, teachers and entrepreneurs during the week.
EdSurge is running a MakerSpace, which will feature work by educators and entrepreneurs to give a hands-on learning jolt to school programs. And there's a LAUNCHedu business plan competition, to boot.
If you're coming to SXSWedu, please come by the MakerSpace room (Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G), try your hand at some cool Maker activities and meet our team.
A couple of schedules you might check out:
EdSurge's schedule of all our mischief;
GettingSmart (Tom Vander Ark's team)'s schedule and highlights;
The full SXSWedu schedule: This includes some nifty panels. Among those that caught our eye:
- MON: Online Education: Will it Make Us Smarter? (InstaEDU, Course Hero, Udemy, Adweek)
- MON: Supercharging the Teaching Profession by Igniting the Power of One (Rebecca Mieliwocki, National Teacher of the Year, 2012)
- TUE: Building Schools into the Innovation Ecosystem (Audrey Watters, Jess Bialecki, Steve Weber and NYC iZone's Steven Hodas)
- TUE: The Changing Face of Public Education (Meria Carstarphen, Superintendent of the Austin Independent School District)
- TUE: inBloom: Powering Personalized Learning for All (Iwan Streichenberger, inBloom CEO)
- WED: New Ecosystems for Ed Innovation (Matt Candler, Heather Gilchrist, Alex Hernandez, Shawn Rubin)
Not to mention all those keynotes, including Thursday morning with Bill G.
If you're at home, check back here for news and updates.
Google is planning to run live Hangouts from its booth--as well as from the MakerSpace. We'll broadcast these live on our Google+ Page. Each day, we'll talk with educators and entrepreneurs in the space as well as a couple of special guest:
Monday: 5:00 pm CT: Higher Ed: MOOCs, Jobs, and Cost: Where is Higher Ed Going? Tuesday: 5:00 pm CT: Down and dirty with DIY: Google hangout featuring the father of the "Maker" movement, Dale Dougherty and the teacher behind the Khan Academy's project based learning Wednesday: 5:00 pm CT: All things K-12: Google hangout roundup with the EdSurge team
Got questions that you'd like to see us ask the folks here? Let us know--post below. We'll do our darndest to get you answers.