Sessions at SXSW Interactive 2012 about Higher Education

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Friday 9th March 2012

• Effective Social Media Presence in Higher Ed

  by Deborah Maue and Liz Gross

  Higher education isn't known for early adoption of innovation. As an industry, it tends to lag behind. This has been generally true of social media implementation as well. And yet some institutions have been successful at creating social media programs that are strategic, integrated, measurable, innovative, and most important, highly successful. How have they overcome the obstacles? Who made it happen? What changes were required to normal ways of doing business? And what can we all learn from it?

  As more and more students take online courses and work multiple jobs to pay for their education, they physically visit campus facilities less often, effectively disengaging them from the institution. As we live more of our lives online, how can we create more opportunities to connect with and engage our students through online networks?

  • Higher Education
  • Social Media

  At 3:30pm to 4:30pm, Friday 9th March

  In Assembly Room, InterContinental Stephen F. Austin

Saturday 10th March 2012

• Design for Social Innovation and Public Good

  by Jess Zimbabwe, Suzi Sosa, Barbara Brown Wilson and John Peterson

  A new movement is gaining momentum in the design world— a movement to expand the applications of high design beyond its elitist client base to solve complex social problems. This panel will engage an array of leaders in the public interest design movement who use design thinking in various ways to address global challenges and engender social innovation at different scales. John Peterson will bring his experience developing the largest interactive matchmaking database for pro bono design services between top architecture firms and deserving nonprofits to the discussion; Jess Zimbabwe’s contribution will be informed by work empowering civic leaders to use design thinking to solve public problems; John Bielenberg will bring his perspective on the influence of graphic design campaigns to bring awareness to complex social problems; while Barbara Brown Wilson will draw from her work in higher education to discuss the role of active learning and interactive online project evaluation to empower students to become social innovators. Suzi Soza, from the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service’s Dell Social Innovation Competition, will moderate the panel.

  • Architecture
  • Design
  • Graphic Design
  • Higher Education
  • land use

  At 12:30pm to 1:30pm, Saturday 10th March

  In Room 9ABC, Austin Convention Center

  Coverage audio clip

• Higher Ed Tech Meet Up Presented Penn State University

  Higher Ed attendance at SXSW continues to grow each year, and we're excited you're here. At this meet up sponsored by The Pennsylvania State University, edutech technologists from Penn State invite you to network, share ideas, swap stories, and hear what colleagues from across the academy are accomplishing in the Higher Ed tech space

  • Education
  • Higher Education
  • Meetup

  At 3:30pm to 4:30pm, Saturday 10th March

  In Salon A, AT&T Conference Center

Sunday 11th March 2012

• Cultures of Basketball: Sports in Higher Education

  by Yago Colás

  In this presentation, I will share the story of a groundbreaking pedagogical experiment that quickly gained national and international attention: teaching “Cultures of Basketball” at the University of Michigan. Inspired by my lifelong love of the game and informed by my scholarly interests in the role that stories, particularly informal stories, play in shaping our daily lives at the individual and collective level, “Cultures of Basketball” quickly surpassed my wildest expectations. Its appearance in university course listings provoked hundreds of student e-mails begging for one of the 24 spots in the course. The impromptu course diary I posted on my blog drew the attention of local newspapers, ESPN.com and other major online venues in this country and abroad, as well as hundreds of readers per day. Finally, the in-class experience provided challenges unlike any I’d faced in my 20 years of university teaching: negotiating the balance between formality and informality, emotional experience and intellectual inquiry, student and student-athlete (students included 8 members of Michigan’s men’s basketball team), the freedom to openly explore uncharted pedagogical ground and the imperatives of academic integrity, all while making my first foray into blogging and micro-blogging social media.

  • Higher Education
  • Sports

  At 11:00am to 12:00pm, Sunday 11th March

  In Driskill Ballroom, Driskill Hotel

Monday 12th March 2012

• An Emerging Solution to How We Teach Our Students

  by Efrin Carrion

  Besides the Great Depression, we are living in what I believe is the hardest time to be a student. The reason for this is that we are going through a revolution. For the last 150 years we have lived in an industrial economy, which was sparked by the Industrial Revolution. But now we are coming into the information stage and what some people call the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary change, the people who succeed are those who live their passion, invest in relationships, and start movements that matter. The “one-size fits all” track to educating our kids is no longer relevant in the new economy. Public schools were created in the industrial age to train people to work for the companies. The more education you got, the better corporate job you received. But now, jobs are declining so there are a lot of qualified candidates who remain unemployed. In fact, college was never created for the majority. Over 62 percent of America high school graduates went to college this year. This number sounds great but a scarier number is that nearly 81 percent of college graduates this year are moving back home with their parents. I went to public school and I remember how my school functioned: assembly lines, long hallways with rows of lockers, and loud bells to tell us to change shifts. This system had many benefits for students whose strengths were conventional academics but even now those students are falling face first in the new economy. I look back at my high school days and say, “If only there was a class in school called Success—who knows where I would be today.” I believe that there is a difference between being educated and being successful. I think school gives us the subjects and basic skills to think for ourselves. But we are not taught how to succeed with the skills given to us. In this session, I will explain the importance of teaching our students the subject of success. I will also talk about how online learning can allow all students to have their own personal life consultant that allows them to personalize their curriculum. As adults, we can teach students to be indispensible no matter the state of the economy.

  • Education
  • Higher Education

  At 12:45pm to 1:00pm, Monday 12th March

  In Room 10AB, Austin Convention Center