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Our Week of Connecting, Learning, and Growing at SXSW EDU 2019

Our Week of Connecting, Learning, and Growing at SXSW EDU 2019

Thursday, March 21, 2019

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference & Festival started as a gathering of industry professionals in music, film, and art, and it has since grown into a massive arts, culture, and business conference—including an education component! SXSW EDU brings together educators from across the world, and part of the Edmentum team had the opportunity to attend this year. We were very excited to connect with educators, attend informative sessions, host a meetup, and even present at the legendary conference. Let’s take a look into the fun our team had while we spent a week in Austin, Texas.

The Talk on Social Media

While we attended the conference, we shared many conference attendee experiences live on our Twitter account. What were some of the themes at this year’s conference? Check out a few of the topics we explored!

First, we talked about the future of education policy, state accountability, and leadership with Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Next, we attended a live podcast recording of the Trending in Education podcast, and we talked about which subjects and ideas will be top of mind for educators in the coming years.

We then talked about the Civil War Reconstruction period and explored how to change the conversation surrounding this important part of America’s history.

We checked out a discussion between David Hogg (The March for Our Lives movement cofounder) and longtime journalist Dan Rather around how to encourage youth to embrace advocacy.

And, of course, we connected with educators at our booth in the expo hall! Our friends and partners from Boulevard Arts even stopped by and showed off their awesome app!

Our Senior Director of Curriculum Development, Melissa Crouch, also made a fun video recapping some of the major themes that were touched on during SXSW EDU.

Connecting with Educators at Our Meetup

While at SXSW EDU, we had the privilege of hosting a meetup, which was an informal, one-hour networking session. We invited educators and professionals attending the conference to join us for a conversation about personalized learning and education technology. The host of our Talking Ed series, Tony Skauge, was there to kick off the event and get the conversation flowing. Check out what that event looked like!

Exploring AR in Online Learning with Boulevard Arts

To wrap up our time at SXSW EDU, we were very excited to host a breakout session with our partners at Boulevard Arts. During our presentation, we explored the potential of augmented reality (AR) as a tool to deepen student engagement and learning and provide more equitable access to arts, culture, and the humanities. We are working hard to integrate AR capabilities in our online courses, and we were so excited to share that process and start a conversation about the possibilities it opens up with forward-thinking educators at the conference. Check out the following video for an overview.

Our team had a blast attending SXSW EDU 2019. Want to find out more about some of the themes we spent the week exploring? Check out these posts on personalized learning, SEL, and interoperability!

Augmented & Virtual Reality
Edmentum's Commitment
Education Policy
Online Learning
Personalized Learning

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