DEC. 18, MONDAY

Evening

Embassy Hop

Join us around New York City as embassies of countries with the progressive educational systems host members of the festival community for cocktails. Learn about growing edtech investment and startup ecosystems internationally and how you can be part of that growth.

DEC. 20, WEDNESDAY

Intro to Angel Investing in EdTech

Learn from practitioners about market opportunities and due diligence frameworks for angel investing in EdTech.

‘Shark’ Tanks

Watch 3-min pitches from seed to growth stage EdTech companies and learn from ‘Sharks’ -- seasoned EdTech investors and industry leaders -- as they use pitches to give context to the biggest opportunities in EdTech.
 

2017 Shark Tanks:

• Early-Childhood & K-12
• HigherEd
• Career Readiness and Workforce
• Financial Literacy
• Medical Education
• AR/VR + EdTech

‘Shark’ Cages

Get a seat at the table with the ‘Sharks’, and watch ‘Shark’ Tanks with commentary from seasoned experts.

Gallery of Innovation

Browse 50+ seed to growth stage EdTech investment opportunities, play with the most impactful EdTech products, or dive-in by ‘speed dating’ the CEOs to learn more about the company.

Open Labs

Get out of the building and attend intimate Open Labs at innovative education organizations and landmarks around New York City.

• 3:00 - 5:00 PM, New York Academy of Sciences
  The Future of Research
  How can we leverage scientific Big Data and technology to accelerate research and innovation?

• 3:00 - 5:00 PM, NYU 907
  The Future of Work
  What does doing your life's work mean in the future? What does the work look like in the future? How will businesses change as they attract and retain talent? A panel discussion on now and later.

• 3:30 - 5:00 PM, NYU
  Higher Education & Work-Force Readiness in the 21st Century
  The 4 person panel discussion will explore higher education's role in preparing learners for a career and life in the 21st century.

• 10:00 - 12:00 PM, NYU 914
  Pearson Pitch Competition at NY EDTECH WEEK
  Do you have a venture that provides underserved learners with better access to quality education products and services? Pitch your venture to judges in front of a live audience on December 20, 2017.

• 1:00 - 3:00 PM, Grand Central Tech
  OER: Low Cost Alternative or New Model for Learning?
  
  Presented by:
  • Doug Lederman (Moderator)
    Editor in Chief
    Inside Higher Ed
  • Sharon Leu
    Senior Policy Advisor, US DOE
    Office of Education Technology
  • David Harris
    Editor in Chief
    OpenStax
  • Cheryl Constantini
    VP Content Strategy
    Cengage
  • Ash Kaluarachchi
    Executive Producer
    StartEd
  • Brian Jacobs
    Founder & CEO
    PanOpen
     
• 3:30 - 5:00 PM, NYU 914
  My First Computer: Creativity & Computing in K-5 education
  1. Description: If computer code is the Lego block of our time – a tool of creation – how do we teach curiosity, joy, and wonder to our kids? And what does Jean Piaget or Montessori have to do with coding? Join us for a workshop to learn the basics of how to bring creative, unplugged technology education to your classroom by the Finnish Hello Ruby methodology that’s in partnership with CS4All's Blueprint.
  2. Additionally, HundrED, a Finnish non-profit that seeks and shares some of the world’s most inspiring K12 innovations will show elementary school teachers how to easily implement innovations including Hello Ruby into their classroom through its digital platform that also offers 24/7 support, for free.

Masterclasses

Masterclasses are 2-hour seminars for up to 20 individuals presented by an in-demand expert or rockstar faculty member.

• Five Ways to Use Emotional Design to Enhance your App
  Most app developers understand the need for a carefully designed user experience. But approaches of how to achieve a successful UI/UX design differ, sometimes in fundamental ways. In this class, we will investigate one specific approach, Emotional Design. Coined in 2004 by design guru Donald Norman, Emotional Design focuses on the emotions experienced by users, and is concerned with ways to design products that elicit emotions that create a positive experience for the user. Based on research conducted in my CREATE lab at NYU, we will discuss the foundations of emotional design and explore five ways of using emotional design to enhance your app.

   

• Bottom-up Analysis and Evidence-Centered Design
  This masterclass in EdTech Analytics focuses on the uses of data to make decisions and draw inferences. Which one leads the way, the data or the question? Exploratory dives into data logs can indeed be revealing (and fun, for some). However, the structure and selection of log data—often from accidental rather than deliberate design decisions—may lead to questions of convenience rather than consequence. As John Turkey said, “better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.” On the flip side, clearly articulated objectives regarding the uses of data can help guide the design of technology on both the back- and front-end.The class will include a brief discussion of evidence-centered design, Bayesian networks, and statistical inference that will help frame a workshop in small groups. Participants should bring examples and case studies from their own projects to workshop in addition to the set that will be offered for consideration by the instructor. Those attending this masterclass should come away with a refined understanding of how designers, data scientists, and developers can work together to improve outcomes for EdTech users.

   

• Differentiating your Product through Learning Experience (LX) Design
  Learning Experience Design (LX) is an emerging design discipline that embraces the values and goals of User Experience Design (UX) in creating memorable and meaningful experiences, only with a dedicated focus on the design of learning experiences. LX encompasses the design thinking and human-centered design approaches typically associated with UX design while simultaneously integrating what we know about how people learn (as best we know it!). In this workshop, participants will learn valuable design practices that lead to effective and enjoyable learning experiences - whether the focus is on the core function of a product or the peripheral learning that needs to occur to be able to use interfaces and interactivity in purposeful ways. Just as a great user experience can differentiate a product in the marketplace, Learning Experience Design can help a product stand out by enhancing learnability, and in creating theoretically grounded designs that draw from a range of well-established disciplines.
   

• Exploring Global Education
  Global Education itself is not a new concept, however, recent world events necessitate the importance of preparing educators, teachers and school leaders, to create learning environments where students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to live and thrive as global citizens. At The Education Partners and GEMS America, our work is grounded in the dualism of Global Education. Firstly, we see Global Education as a mechanism that actions our deeply held commitment that all children across the world must have equitable access to high quality education-- that education is equitably accessed globally. Across the globe, education is broadly accepted as the means to empower children and adults to fully participate in government, civics, community and the economy, while escaping poverty, compromised health, and other societal woes. Education is critically important for the success of nations which explains why governments (federal, state and local) take on the programmatic and fiscal responsibilities for educating their children and youth. Secondly, and perhaps more commonly, Global Education is broadly defined as curriculum that engages students in understanding the many ways in which our lives are interconnected with other people throughout the world. This definition of Global Education tends to emphasize cultural, political, economic, and environmental factors that influence our lives and others. This humanistic focus to education is grounded in human rights, social justice, inclusion, and collective responsibility, while providing a way for children and youth to further their global competency - to act on their understanding of how their lives are interconnected with others across the globe. For the purposes of our work, we use the term Global Education to mean the former and Global Citizenship Education to mean the later. Taken together, both Global Education and Global Citizenship Education provide a powerful catalyst to change the world. To do this, educators themselves must become globally competent in order to best develop these capacities in their students.