SXSWEdu Take Aways

Last week was really incredible for me.  This is true for many reasons.  Subsequently, I am still sorting it out.


Monday morning I completed high-jump practice with four very talentent young women with great enthusiasm for the sport.  Then I heard some heart-breaking news that can only be described as a gut-punch.

Emotionally on edge, I continued on to SXSWEdu that morning and immediately began being bombarded with new ideas and new methods of learning.   I was introduced to GeekDom and Spark Ed.  I hope to visit their space with students sometime soon.

At lunch I had the pleasure of seeing @dlaufenberg, and had the good fortune to go with her to hear the PBL session by Alfred Solis of the Buck Institute.   He shared lessons he completed at San Diego HTH.  WOW!

Some Key Points he made:
1.  Start with a field trip to get students invested.
2.  Give kids Voice and Choice
3.  Do the project yourself FIRST and build the rubric in your head as you do it.
4. After the visit do a Blog-o-Thon (Blog-o-Con not sure which), notice that this gives quite-types a voice.
5. Make your Guiding question UnGoogleable ex.  Does Music Make Waves?


I arrived too late to attend the session on Personalized Learning Systems by Andrew Butler to Duke University and Richard Baraniuk of Rice University, but again I had the good fortune to hear the session entitled "Got Game?  Learning through Play. Seriously."  (links to the Podcast)

Monday late afternoon, I again, was blown away by the session, "Meet the Educational Stars of YouTube." (links to the podcast).   Incredible!  I am sad/embarrassed to say that I didnt even know Smart Girls at the Party existed, I had never spent time on the Vlog Brothers or Crash Course YouTube Channels, and I never dreamed the creator of Ted Ed was a 30 yr old.


This was all in ONE DAY!!!!