EdTechBridgeSXSWEdu 2017

OUR MISSION

#EdTechBridge is a twitter chat and online community with a goal of facilitating collaboration among edtech stakeholders (educators, developers, researchers, students, etc.) to build better EdTech for our students.

WHO WE ARE

Steve Isaacs

Steve has been teaching for 24 years. He

teaches Video Game Design and

Development at William Annin Middle

School. Through the years, Steve has

developed relationships with EdTech

companies (E-line Media, BrainPOP,

TechSmith, Microsoft, PBS Learning Media,

YoYoGames, etc.) to provide input to guide

product development, recruit student voice,

and share resources with other educators.

He is passionate about student choice and

student voice in education.

WHO WE ARE

Katya Hott

Katya is the UX Research at BrainPOP,

working with BrainPOP’s design team

and teachers and students to collaborate

on designs. Before coming to BrainPOP,

Katya worked as an ESL teacher in

Boston and was passionate about

incorporating technology in her

classroom. After teaching, Katya

received a Masters in Digital Media

Design for Learning from NYU and spent

three years as the learning content

producer for educational games at E-Line

Media.

SXSWEdu 2014

Bridging the Teacher-Entrepreneur Divide

Problem: Teachers want to bring innovative and effective technology to their classrooms, and EdTech companies need teachers to evaluate their products from inception to launch. Both parties know it's important to work together to build good tools, but often run into the cultural divide that exists between educators and technologists.

Session: In this problem solving session, we raised the issues that exist between the teachers and EdTech creators and participants collaborated to create a resource that both technologists and teachers could use to learn more about each other and better communicate and collaborate. From this workshop, the #EdTechBridge Twitter Chat and Community was born!

SXSWEdu 2015

During our first appearance at #SXSWEdu in 2014, we promised to create a resource to bridge the gap between the two groups. From that session came #edtechbridge: a weekly chat that asks teachers and EdTech professionals to share practices, tackle problems, and work together. In 2015, we hosted a conversation on the successes and challenges of building a teacher-entrepreneur community and what it means to make great EdTech together.

Building the #EdTechBridge

SXSWEdu 2016

Real Examples: Teacher-Entrepreneur Collaboration

At SXSW 2016, a panel of #edtechbridge community members shared their experiences working together outside of Twitter. The panel comprised two teachers and two EdTech developers who have forged mutually beneficial relationships that influenced the development and successful classroom integration of products.

SXSWEdu 2016

Also . . .

The US Department of Education asked #EdTechBridge to facilitate meeting bringing together Early Childhood Educators and EdTech Developers.

SXSWEdu 2017

Coming to SXSWEdu 2017 . . with your help!

Build Your Product with Teacher Voice

This year we will share our findings from this community on how to effectively

incorporate teachers' voices into an EdTech product in the form of strategies,

advice, case studies, and tales of success and caution.