LearnLaunch needs your help! This year, LearnLaunch staff, accelerator companies past and present, and companies that work in our campus space, have submitted session proposals for SXSWedu. The voting process is simple: make an account and upvote the sessions you want to see at the conference.

Read the descriptions below and click the links to upvote LearnLaunch sessions and help us bring Boston to Austin for the sixth year in a row!

LearnLaunch Staff

Why Every Impact Investor Should Invest in Edtech
Featuring LearnLaunch Co-Founder, Jean Hammond
This session will discuss the impact investment landscape and why investors are interested in workforce development startups right now. Panelists will talk about trends and how to get funding as a startup from multiple perspectives, including an edtech accelerator, an edtech funder (Series A&B) and a limited partner in several edtech focused venture capital funds.

#cultureofme 2 #cultureofwe: Boston Public Schools
Featuring LearnLaunch Co-Founder, Eileen Rudden
Boston Public Schools has 125 schools and a complex admin structure. People connect more within their school/department, and less across silos. How does BPS shift to a #cultureofwe? With a new superintendent and district-wide vision, BPS turned to social networking to connect the system. Learn what happens when teachers’ comments are “liked” by the supe, when staff share ideas directly with the cabinet, and external partners collaborate in the same virtual workplace as schools and Central.

Developing US EdTech in International Markets
Featuring LearnLaunch Managing Director, Liam Pisano
Edtech entrepreneurs are finding ways to develop product in international markets. How? Is this developing concept accelerated by international investment? Our panel explores distribution channels and investors in both Latin America and Asia and how they work for the edtech entrepreneur. Our panelists represent the international edtech. Our panelists include an edtech community builder, a US edtech investor, an Asian edtech VC, and an Asian hybrid edtech investor and distribution and operator.

4 State Approaches to Personalized Learning
Featuring LearnLaunch MAPLE Executive Director, David O’Connor
Moving schools from the old factory model to a personalized model is a daunting challenge. State education agencies have taken different strategies to help their schools make this transition. With this panel, you will hear from public and private representatives of Colorado, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Texas, on how they are approaching this challenge, including why they chose their strategy for their schools, how is it working, and what lessons have they learned to date.

Identify. Evaluate. Critique. Edtech for Educators
Featuring Accelerator Program Manager, Ben Bungert
Too often educators are left out of the feedback loop as founders blindly create products for theoretical customers. The goal of this session will be to 1. introduce educators to edtech (trends, purpose) 2. explore the product feedback process/how educators engage with it 3. set educators up with a framework for finding, identifying, evaluating and implementing these technologies. Ultimately, encouraging educators to seek out products and include themselves & their students in their development.

LearnLaunch Accelerator And Campus Companies

Authentic Assessment with Purpose
Featuring Authess CEO, Paul Crockett
Panelists will explore how authentic, real-world, cognitively complex, and performance-based assessments can impact learning, employability, and equality. The panelists will share examples of how they are using authentic assessment for particular impact. With validity and reliability in mind, the session will also discuss how advanced technologies, such as machine learning and data analytics, can help deliver authentic, open-ended assessments at scale.

Podcasting In Your Classroom 101
Featuring Listenwise CEO and Founder, Monica Brady-Myerov
Discover how to embed podcasting into your teaching pedagogy. Not only is podcasting fun to do, but podcasting supports important 21st century skills for communication, critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. Your students will love podcasting as a medium to express themselves, share problem-solving ideas and personal perspectives in story form. We’ll share sample student podcasts, best practices, and determine the tools/resources that will fit your classroom.

Tales from EdTech Accelerators
Featuring Zulama CEO, Nikki Navta; Peekapak CEO, Ami Shah; Playposit CEO, Benjamin Levy; and Listenwise CEO, Monica Brady-Myerov
You have a great idea! You’ve started your edtech business but now you need help growing. You’re considering joining an accelerator, but what do they really do for you? In this session you will hear the whole truth and nothing but the truth from edtech entrepreneurs who collectively have participated in 6 different accelerator programs. They will tell you the key questions you should be asking yourself and the accelerator before applying.

Who’s Got the Remote? Makin’ Learner Agency Real
Featuring SchoolHack Solutions Founder, Josie Jordan
As curriculum, instruction, and assessment shifts to be competency-based and personalized, learner agency emerges as a necessity, how can we both hand over the remote, and help learners select the proper channels for their unique strengths and challenges? Or help learners push up the volume of their engagement and motivation? Experience how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) could be the remote that empowers learners to direct the what, how, and why of their learning.

Using Xenos for Employability Foundational Skills
Featuring Learning Games Studios CEO, Ira Sockowitz
Over 36 million adult Americans lack the English language and literacy skills they need for education and employment opportunities. Learning Games Studio’s Xenos Isle platform excites, motivates and engages learners, and delivers measurable learning outcomes by joining compelling game-based experiences with strong instructional design and the learning sciences. With proven efficacy from 3rd party studies, mobile delivery not only increases access for learners but drives value by lowering costs.

The Surprising Keys to Supporting New Teachers
Featuring TeachersConnect CEO, David Meyers
Imagine building a house by yourself. Now imagine a whole neighborhood of houses, each built largely by a single person. Pretty inefficient, right? The most valuable human skill is our ability to collaborate. Yet, right now authentic, enduring collaboration is difficult for all educators, especially those newest to the field. Come hear about our research on what drives teacher collaboration, and work with other participants to spark a revolution in new teacher support in your school.

Weekly Teacher Feedback For Your Edtech Product
Featuring TeachersConnect CEO and Co-Founder, David Meyers
Constant user feedback is essential to building products that resonate with teachers. But how do you integrate that feedback into your product roadmap and designs? In this session, we’ll describe how TeachersConnect implemented an Agile process to create one-week design sprints fueled by weekly teacher feedback. We’ll share how we set up the process, and we’ll give you the key ingredients and frameworks to make teacher feedback a fundamental part of your design and development process.

Innovating to Attract International Students
Featuring StudyPortals Executive Vice President of Global Engagement, Research & Intelligence, Rahul Choudaha
The American leadership as the preferred destination for many international students is under threat. I analyzed the past, present and future of international student mobility in three overlapping Waves spread over seven years between 1999 and 2020. The current wave is evolving in a new political context of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. In a competitive environment, higher education institutions must innovate to attract, engage, and support international students.