SXSWedu 2013 Reflections #2 - Top 5 Observations

While it will take me some time to process all the thoughts I gathered this year, my “top five” observations are:

1. Passion is still the single greatest factor for high-impact, personalized, effective teaching and will infect students with the desire to learn with or without the presence of technology.
2. Educators Unite! Tensions between entrepreneurs and educators at SXSWedu may be by design (and healthy to a certain extent), but educators need to flood this conference next year and swing the “balance of power” if you will.
3. There are no new ideas under the sun for great teaching.  Only old (and great) principles presented in new ways.
4. No form of education is "dead." Despite what the MOOCs would have you believe, good traditional lectures still exist (and are very applicable).  Likewise, merely “digitizing” a class does not make it more relevant (and apparently keeps Richard Culatta awake at night according to the session where I listened to him speak).  Any teaching method that produces learning is still valid in my book.
5. “Ed Tech” needs to be redefined (at least for me).  I forget exactly where I heard it, but it stuck in my mind: technology developed specifically for education rarely “makes it.”  While many vendors may have found pockets of success, the chalkboard, whiteboard, overhead projector and LMS may be the only large-scale examples. (Of course, I don’t claim to be perfect so I may be overlooking something).  However, teachers who find inventive ways to use consumer technology in education often create synergies that can live on outside their classroom.

Yes, some of this is a repeat from my “How I Made This Year Better” post, but ask anyone who hangs out with me and they’ll tell you I tend to repeat myself.  

Keeping the Ball Rolling

This post is intended solely to summarize my top 5 personal takeaways.  I’ll break each one of the down more in depth over the next few days.

Up Next...

Keeping with my first takeaway, I’ll expound on where I see passion being devalued (particularly at SXSWedu), as well as the few places where it is held in proper regard.