Time for A Thumbs Up for SXSWedu

It’s that time! Community votes and comments for SXSWedu are now open! We have from now until September 6, 2013 (11:59 PM CT) to get our votes in for what we’d like to see at SXSWedu. We’d truly appreciate thumbs up from all of our awesome readers since public voting counts for 30% of the decision on what gets accepted for the main event!

We Built This City: If you’ve enjoyed Tom’s Smart Cities posts – you’ll love this session!

Session Description: There is an emerging framework for urban education: set high goals, build the talent pipeline, foster innovation, improve struggling schools and create new options. Building the compacts that powers the dynamic multi-provider portfolios is new territory, but three dozen cities are hard at work forging a new collaborative path. Funders, agitators, harbormasters, and urban leaders will describe the pitfalls and promising practices of urban education portfolios.

Participants:

Tom Vander Ark, Getting Smart
Ethan Gray, CEE-Trust
Don Shalvey, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Cook Up A Batch of Blended Learning: This session is guaranteed to NOT be sit and get- this is all about “making a mess in the kitchen.”

Session Description: Put on your apron and get ready to put the finest ingredients to work. In addition to the presenters, we’ll have top EdTech Master Chefs on hand to help the teams find the right ingredients! Foodies will recognize this gameshow approach to education from Food Network’s Chopped cooking competition. This workshop style session will begin with a brief introduction to blended learning implementation, including key decisions schools and districts need to make and sharing blended learning model examples.

Participants:

Carri Schneider, Getting Smart
Alison Anderson, Getting Smart
John Bailey,Digital Learning Now!

Investing In Education Innovation 2.0: Interested in investment opportunities that can make a difference in education?

Session Description: Back by popular demand, Alex Hernandez and Tom Vander Ark will provide a few minutes of opening advice. The session will then become fully interactive as they lead the audience through questions posed before and during an interactive expert session on funding start-ups and growth organizations.

Participants:

Tom Vander Ark, Getting Smart
Alex Hernandez ,Charter School Growth Fund

Our Partner Organization Sessions

The Elephants in the K-12 Classroom: Looking to gain some insight into the toughest challenges facing K-12 education today?

Session Description: Join us for a panel discussion as we debate three of the toughest issues in K-12 education today and set the tone for on-going discussion and collaboration during SXSWedu:

Technology, student data and privacy
Common core
Is EdTech ecosystem good for K-12 education

Organizer: Compass Learning

Participants:

Arthur VanderVeen, Compass Learning
Tom Vander Ark , Getting Smart

Connecting the Blended Learning Dots: Can technology really improve each student’s educational experience?

Session Description: These two blended learning experts, Matthew Peterson and Chris Liang-Vergara, think so. During this interactive conversation the presenters will discuss blended learning implementation in elementary schools and highlight examples from New Orleans and elsewhere. We’ll discover how teachers can begin implementing blended learning from the ground up.

Organizer: Abby Daniels, MIND Research Institute

Speakers

Matthew Peterson, MIND Research Institute
Chris Liang-Vergara, FirstLine Schools

Good & Bad Marriages: Philanthropic Partnerships: Successful schools need to make and maintain successful philanthropic connections.

Session Description: Local philanthropic partnerships can leverage resources to attack big problems but they are challenging to create. A panel experienced with building, participating, and advising partnerships will lay out pitfalls and best practices.

Organizer: Mind Research Institute

Participants:

Ingrid Ellerbe, MIND Research Institute
Michael Yutzrenka, Cisco Systems
Ana Tilton, Grantmakers for Education
Steve Seleznow, Arizona Community Foundation

How to Implement Technology to Drive Student Gains: Take deep dive into what it really takes to integrate digital technology into the classroom.
This panel of practitioners from leading charter, virtual, and traditional schools/districts will discuss successes, challenges, and the innovative strategies they’re employing to make adaptive technology work for them in order to make classrooms better places for teachers and students.
Organizer: Curriculum Associates
Paricipants: