Every spring, one unique ed-tech conference allows attendees, exhibitors, thought leaders, and other pacesetters in the education space to gather and jam to the rhythm of coming horizons in educational innovation. This predictive education jam session that we know as SXSWedu is scheduled this year in Austin, Texas from March 5-8.
The SXSWedu Conference & Festival is a part of the SouthbySouthwest family of conferences, fostering “innovation in learning by hosting a diverse and energetic community of stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds in education.”
The dominant theme of SXSWedu remains consistent: the dogged pursuit of equity in education. Some of the refrains previewed in this year’s conference clearly are traditional in nature, much the same fare we would see in other ed-tech conferences around the U.S.: accessibility, project-based learning, makerspaces and open educational resources (OER). Other themes being tapped out at SXSWedu are swelling and are well worth our notice; a few have leveled out at the conference, but are not yet started on the diminuendo; and a few ear-catching ‘riffs’ have emerged as possible new directions/messaging for the education market. Let’s take a look at these play sets, shall we?
Stringendo
Quietly playing out small last year, but appearing to swell in the upcoming SXSWedu conference, we see a large number of sessions now dedicated to:
Personalized Learning. The newest take on ‘individualized” learning in schools, ‘personalized’ learning allows for students to pursue their own pace, pathways and choices in their educational journey, with technology being an essential tool along the way.
Learning Environments. The redesign of learning spaces and schools themselves is becoming increasingly important, and technology has both central and ancillary roles in reshaping and retooling for the future.
Deep Learning. The Deeper Learning movement calls not for the shift from passive to active learning and the increased application of higher order thinking skills as students create, and not regurgitate, knowledge. According to the 2017 Horizon Report, it also calls for pursuing the “enabling role of technologies” to get that job done.
Fortepiano
VR is back at SXSWedu, but seems to be softening, with a decidedly obvious switch: there is a much greater emphasis this year on student creation or production of virtual reality, consistent with the “deeper learning” phenomenon. In the student creation realm, we see presentations like:
- The Future of Learning: Convergence of VR, AR, & AI
- Students Can Build the VR/AR Worlds of the Future
- Guide to VR Worldbuilding
- Can Students Create VR? Short Answer: Yes!
Interest in student-generated VR content is growing
Other intriguing VR sessions include titles (and my commentary in parentheses) such as:
- Taking Over Higher Education with VR & AR (Using VR for recruitment and retention purposes of prospective students)
- Higher Ed Solutions with Google (Use cases for higher ed)
- Black Gotham: Immersive Storytelling & Technology (Immersive VR/AR designed to place you in the story)
- Immersive Learning with Google (Another obvious K-12 Google Expeditions panel )
- VR: Beyond Virtual Field Trips to Building Empathy (Using VR to build empathy)
- Making a Case for VR in the Classroom (A case study of student engagement and teacher adoption of VR)
- Pandora’s Headset: The Ethics of VR in Education (The obligatory conference session warning us of the perils of VR looming in the shadows: “Does virtual reality have a dark side?” The presenters do address some interesting concerns: safety issues, decreased empathy, virtual bullying, financial barriers, privilege, privacy, and data collection…oh my!)
Forte
Some new riffs are waxing so loud, they remind me of Eric Clapton in his Cream days. Grinding out from SXSWedu this year, the following themes pierce into our airspace:
- a louder and stronger higher-ed focus is on display, more than ever before. One fascinating presentation offers to address some of the “barriers to unlocking the promise of a tech-enabled university”, such as “initiative fatigue, procurement paralysis, and implementation infidelity”
- A.I. may be the new darling croon song of educational luminaries
- Social Emotional Learning (known as SEL) is floating in the air with attention-getting resonance
- Design Thinking (related to makerspaces and the engineering process) is newly reverberating
I wonder how one could co-opt these growing and fresh themes to leverage excitement and attention for display products, positioning and sales?—Len Scrogan
