A week in Austin, Texas: Being a student again at SXSWedu® 2017
By Melissa Ripp, Director, PR & Communications
Flights booked? Check. Hotel rooms secured? Check. Full-access conference passes? Check. Next week, from March 6–9, 2017, Renaissance will be in Austin, Texas, for SXSWedu®.
For those not familiar with SXSWedu, it’s an offshoot of the popular SXSW festival that’s been held in Austin since the late 1980s. SXSWedu began in 2011, and since then, it’s been committed to fostering innovation in learning by hosting a passionate and diverse community of education stakeholders. The festival features four days of presentations, in-depth workshops, discussions, networking, and so much more. Last year, SXSWedu greeted nearly 14,000 educators, business and industry leaders, and stakeholders in the nonprofit and government arenas—and a few students, too!
I’m excited about SXSWedu for many reasons. First, this event has a reputation for being the place where bold and brave new ideas in education are unveiled. A quick glimpse at the list session titles, keynote speakers, and interactive workshops is enough to make anyone passionate about education swoon a little. With specific tracks on everything from data (student privacy, trends and predictions, ethics) and early learning (boosting curiosity, teaching STEM) to instruction (student empowerment, personalized learning) and learning spaces (build-your-own, outdoor tech instruction, maker spaces), you’ll have no shortage of things to learn. As someone who gets excited about every opportunity I have to be a student again, I can’t wait to settle in this weekend and figure out my conference schedule!
The other reason I’m excited is that we’ve been planning great events on behalf of Renaissance. We’ll be hosting several throughout the the week. Check out the descriptions below and make sure to stop by if you’re attending the conference.
SXSWedu Opening Party
Monday, March 6, 2017
7:30 p.m. – 11:30 p.m.
Buffalo Billiards, 201 East 6th Street
To close out the first day in Austin, we’ll be hosting an opening-day party. Food and beverages will be plentiful as well as games like billiards, darts, and more in a laid-back pool hall in Austin’s historic Sixth Street district. Join us for a bit of fun and reflection on the first day’s events. All SXSWedu attendees are welcome!
Industry Talk: Personalized Learning for ELL Students
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
4:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
JW Marriott, Griffin Hall
English language learners are the fastest-growing segment of the public school population, and according to the National Education Association (NEA), one in four public school students will be ELL students by 2025. There are plenty of challenges facing these students and their teachers, one of the biggest being assessment. Appropriate assessment helps teachers understand if students are making progress or struggling due to a language barrier.
Meaningful formative assessment, paired with a personalized learning model, can truly make a difference for ELL students, but how do we arm educators with what they need and create scalable solutions? Gene Kerns, Vice President and Chief Academic Officer at Renaissance, will be speaking about personalized learning and how it can directly benefit ELL students.
Renaissance Star Spanish® Launch Party
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Swift’s Attic, 315 Congress Avenue
Our Star Spanish launch fiesta will celebrate the only solution on the market that delivers real-time insight into a student’s capabilities in English and Spanish. We’re excited to show you what Star Spanish can help your students achieve. If you’ll be in the Austin area, we’d love to have you as our guest. You don’t have to be registered for SXSWedu to attend, but space is limited for this event, and you must register to attend. Click here to RSVP.
A week of learning and discovering? Check. My first-ever visit to Austin institution Torchy’s Tacos? Check. The opportunity to meet so many people who share my passion for education? Double check.
I hope to see you in Austin, but if you’re not attending this year, I’ve got you covered! Be on the lookout for another blog from me after the event, where I’ll be giving a rundown of what I learned and what caught my eye at this year’s conference. And be sure to like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter at @RenLearnUS, where I’ll be live-tweeting some of my adventures throughout the week.
Speaking of social media, we’re excited to announce that we’re hosting a Twitter chat with EdSurge (@EdSurge) during SXSWedu as well—on Tuesday, March 7, at 7:00 p.m. CST, to be exact. EdSurge will be leading this chat—Renaissance will moderate—about personalized learning and what it looks like in the classroom. To participate, follow EdSurge on Twitter, and when questions are posted during the chat, reply back with the hashtag #edsurgechat.
If you’re attending SXSWedu this year, what are you looking forward to learning about? Will we see you? If you’re not attending, what are you hoping gets covered? Do you plan to attend next year? Let us know in the comments!
Keep up with our SXSWedu plans and all things Renaissance by subscribing to the Renaissance newsletter.
Melissa is inspired every day by the stories she hears about amazing educators doing amazing things in their classrooms and schools. In her free time, she enjoys running, watching documentaries, and has a soft spot in her heart for old buildings, vintage signage, and street art.
39 Comments
I love Austin and this looks like fun. But, I’ll miss it… can’t do everything!
I’ve never been to Austin, Rita — and I promise to bring back as much information as I can for you!
Sounds very interesting!
I think it will be, Ami! I hope to bring back a lot of great insights for you. 🙂
It’s cool things like this, that make me wish educators had more money to further their interests.
Absolutely, Renee — it’s partly why Renaissance is going to SXSWedu. We want to bring back all the innovative and wonderful ideas we hear back to you and your fellow educators, because we know it can be challenging to get to these conferences. We’re always focused on being a resource!
I agree! I would love to learn more about this!
I would love a discussion to take place on the benefits of recess for early childhood (K-5) students. I am personally in favor of breaks, especially those which include movement.
Kimberly, if I see a session like that, I would be happy to pop in and see what I can find out for you. Thanks so much for reading!
Sounds like a wide variety of topics are covered! Wish I could attend!
Amber, I’m not sure of the total number of sessions, but I think it’s at least over 1,500 — a crazy amount of knowledge! I’ll do my best to bring as much back as I can — thanks for reading!
This sound like a very interesting, enlightening, and informative event.
Dvawn, I think it will be. I can’t wait!
Some of the elementary schools in my district are at least 1/3 ELLs and in one school, they predict they will make up the majority of the school’s population in a couple years. Would love to, but won’t be able to attend!
Sheila, we’ve been hearing similar statistics. I’ll be live-tweeting Gene Kerns’ talk on Twitter, and I think it will also make its way to a blog post in the near future. Stay tuned — and thanks for reading!
Half my class is Latino. I would love to attend an event like this. Unfortunately, traveling across the country to Austin is not in my family’s budget.
Carly, I plan to live-tweet Gene Kerns’ session on Wednesday — if you’re on Twitter, I’ll be on at 4-4:30 pm CST at @RenLearnUS — look for the #PersonalizingELL hashtag! If you’re not on Twitter, I can give you the transcript of my tweets if you’d like the information. Thanks for reading!
Sorry, I won’t be there… but I will be at the NC Collaborative Conference for Student Achievement later this month and I understand that Renaissance will be hosting an exhibitor’s booth at the conference.
Sorry to hear that, Barbara — but excited to see that we won’t be missing you completely. See you in NC!
Unfortunately, budgets will not allow me to attend this event, but I would love to have the chance in future years. I am most interested in sessions that would dive into how the use of Google Apps could help facilitate student collaboration across districts, and how teachers could come together to make this happen.
Mr. Keech, I’m certainly that I could find a session like this and learn more for you. 🙂 Stay tuned — and thanks for reading!
I wish I could attend but the event is to far away
I hear you, Keita — but if there’s anything in particular you’re interested in, I’ll be sure to keep my eye out for information!
I would love to attend this event. I would like to hear more about how we can get children into books at a time when we’re competing against video games, Netflix, apps, etc. How can we use tech to help not hinder?
Jennifer, I think there will be plenty of session that deal with this very thing. 🙂 I hope to get to a few of those — I promise I’ll bring back what I’ve learned!
Sounds like a worthwhile event. I cannot attend.
I didn’t even know about this event. Would definitely love to attend this year!
Sounds like an exciting event! Time well spent!
Sounds like a great event!
I look forward to reading about it. Can’t attend. 🙁
The meeting for formative assessment piece sounds very interesting. I hope to hear a lot more about it.
Sounds like a great learning opportunity.
I would love to hear more about STEM and ways to enhance 21st century learning ideals/ standards in our curriculum. I am also interested in flexible seating arrangements and would love to know more about that.
I hope that educators attending this event can benefit greatly for the material presented. It looks like there is much to learn and I hope it goes well.
Sounds great!
Looking forward! Sounds good.
I want to transition to 1:1 with take-home. looking for good Strong policies for this to happen
I really wish I could have attended this event. I know there was a lot of learning going on. Maybe next year.
Sounds fun; would love to attend!