The Learning Accelerator team is excited to announce that we have submitted panel proposals for SXSWedu, a three-day conference held in Austin, Texas in March. The event draws thousands of participants from across the country to engage in meaningful conversation and collaboration around promising practices to improve teaching and learning.
Given the conference’s unique focus on learning, technology, and ed reform, as well as the diverse mix of of educators, district and state leaders, technologists, philanthropists, and reformers, we have decided to submit ideas on three critical aspects of our blended learning work:
– Scaling nationally
– Using lean startup to redesign a school district
– Building teacher capacity for making the shift
We need your help!
More than 700 proposals were submitted this year; in order to get our panels selected, we need your support. Specifically:
1) Vote for our proposals on the SXSW PanelPicker. SXSWedu uses a selection process that depends in part on crowd-sourced selection. Supporting our panels with your vote is easy. Just go to http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/, register, find our panels (listed below) and click the “thumbs up” button next to each of our proposals. You can vote for multiple sessions, so feel free to check out what other folks have submitted as well.
2) Share with others. As there are so many interesting panel options (48 alone that address blended learning!), we could use your help getting the word out. Please feel free to forward or tweet a link to this blog announcement.
Our Submissions
At The Learning Accelerator, we believe that blended learning is the transformative educational innovation of our time. But districts pursuing this innovation need partners, which will require collaboration across the ecosystem, a clear national vision, and significant funding. In this panel, we’ll talk with EducationSuperHighway, an organization whose work provides a case study of what support for blended learning implementation at national scale looks like. We’ll hear about the nonprofit’s journey and explore lessons and implications for others. #blendedlearning #scale #broadband (URL:http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/22440)
In a unique move away from the R&D of the past, The Learning Accelerator and Reynoldsburg City Schools are working together to blend learning throughout the entire district – testing, revising, discarding and championing new hypotheses, and continually focusing on the student experience. The lean start-up model serves as inspiration. #blendedlearning #edreform #leanstartup (URL: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/18760)
New Teaching Competencies for 21st Century Schools
High-quality blended learning school models integrate technology with in-person instruction in transformative ways that put students at the center of schooling. In this panel conversation, we plan to bring together leaders working at different levels of the system to explore the new competencies that might be needed, how teachers might make the shift, and what districts and other school organizations can do to help them as they do. #teachers #blendedlearning #edtech #PD (URL:
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/17665)
Voting closes on September 6 so vote today! Thank you for your support!
The Learning Accelerator
