Based on my involvement in the Evolve conference sponsored by the 20 Million Minds Foundation, held in January, I wrote a series of posts covering the discussions around online education and educational technology. The three main posts:
- Evolve Conference Analysis: Move Past Status Quo and Focus on Student Success
- Evolve Analysis: Student Success in Online Requires More Than Courses
- Evolve Analysis: Student Perception of the Benefits of Online Courses
During the conference I put out a call for other conferences to follow 20MM’s lead and work harder to directly include students in their discussions of ed tech – full post here and video below:
Before we get to the analyses, however, it is important to highlight once again how unique this format is in education or ed tech settings. There is plenty of discussion about needing course design and support services that are learner-centric, yet typically ed tech conferences don’t have learner-centric discussions. We need to stop just talking about students and add the element of talking with students.
While I do not believe there is a direct connection, this week Sir Richard Branson created a youth panel as part of the UK’s Generation Tech review, giving students a direct voice in educational technology. The panel’s focus is K-12 usage and is described in The Telegraph: (more…)