Yee Haa, it's SXSW EDU in Austin Texas
What is SXSW
“Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals that celebrate the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries. An essential destination for global professionals, the event features sessions, showcases, screenings, exhibitions, and a variety of networking opportunities. SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together.”“SXSW EDU is a component of the South by Southwest® (SXSW®) family of conferences and festivals. Internationally recognized as the convergence gathering for creative professionals, SXSW EDU extends SXSW’s support for the art of engagement to include society’s true rock stars: educators!”
Stats
SXSW
Attendees (2018) - 75,098
Conference sessions - 2,147
SXSW Edu
Registrants (2018) - 8,132
Conference sessions - 449
The Sessions
The majority of conference programming is created by “PanelPicker®, a two-part, online process that enables the community to lend their voice to the event. Step one encourages the community to enter a session proposal to speak at SXSW EDU 2019. Step two allows the community to browse all of the ideas, leave comments, and vote for their favorite proposals.”This year the topics that featured heavily at SxSW and SxSW.edu reflected those being discussed in the wider community - AI and the future of work, and micro-credentialing. In this report I provide an overview of some standout sessions.
Edcamp
Some of you may have heard of or attended ‘un-conferences’, where the topics of discussion are more fluid and based on what individuals and groups want to talk and hear about. EdCamp is a type of ‘un-conference’ for educators that started in the USA in 2010 and had now spread around the world. The basic premise is that attendees come with topics they want to talk about and the topics are sorted into ‘discussion sessions’. There is a lot of information on their site including a link to an Edcamp Organizer Handbook. If anyone would like to organise an Edcamp or would like to participate in one let us know.Non-obvious
Trend curator, storyteller, innovator Rohit Bhargava presented a fascinating overview of his 2018 non-obvious trends. Rohit first published the Non-Obvious Trend Report in 2011 and it has now evolved into best selling book Non Obvious (How to predict trends and win the future) which is updated annually. Some of the ideas Rohit discussed in more detail included:- RetroTrust which is the “idea that we trust in brands and experiences from our past” - the trend is thought to be a reaction to fake news.
- Muddled Masculinity describes the “rising empowerment of women and reevaluation of gender itself are causing widespread confusion and angst about what it means to be a man today.”
Learning Sciences and Ed Tech: Uncovering the Facts
Alexandra Resch - Bill and Melinda Gates FoundationJeremy Roschelle - Digital Promise Global
Katrina Stevens - Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Melina Uncapher - Institute for Applied Neuroscience
The question posed to the panel was ‘What is the ONE learning science fact you wish all educators (especially those who integrate technology into their teaching) knew, and why?’
The panel used a neuro-scientific lens to look at some common learning challenges. Of particular interest was the idea presented by Katrina Stevens who spoke about ‘Identifying and impacting motivational issues’. Katrina emphasised the need to interpret student responses to learning challenges. The discussion focussed on a framework developed by Richard Clark and Bror Saxberg1 that posited consideration of the whole learner perspective gives insight into motivation issues.
1.Engineering Motivation Using the Belief-Expectancy-Control Framework || Interdisciplinary Education and Psychology || Rivera Publications. (2019). Riverapublications.com. Retrieved 1 April 2019, from http://riverapublications.com/article/engineering-motivation-using-the-belief-expectancy-control-framework#article-info
Algorithms go to Law School: The Ethics of AI
Tess Poser - AI4ALLFrancesca Rossi - Global Leader for AI Ethics, IBM (Member of EU High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence)
Lynne Parker - Assistant Director for AI, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Lucilla Sioli - Director of AI and Digital Industry, European Commission
In this standout session four amazing women provided a high level overview of some of the programs and guidelines being developed by governments and the EU to address some of the future challenges of AI.
SXSW is huge, busy, crazy, overwhelming, inspiring, exciting and very tiring! I hope to see y'all there next year!
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