The Learning Solution.

Top 3 reasons you should attend SXSWedu

Last month Matygo had the honour of presenting at one of North America’s leading education technology conferences, SXSWedu. Our CEO, Paul Lambert, pitched our new direction as the flipped classroom platform and we were thrilled with the response. If you’re in the edtech space we recommend you check out SXSWedu, but what makes it so special?

Innovation takes centre-stage

You would expect innovation to be a key feature of a leading edtech event, and it was with startups from all over the world being invited to share their vision of the future. 

LAUNCHedu drew crowds during SXSWedu as it featured edtech startups pitching their business ideas to a panel of industry judges. Matygo, along with other burgeoning startups like GYLO and LearningJar, shared their unique perspective on how they plan to shape the future of education technology. 

The seats were full and Twitter was buzzing with commentary all about the best of edtech innovation — just check out this social coverage. 

Meet the who’s who of the edtech industry

Coming face-to-face with some of the biggest names in edtech is just one more of the main draws to an industry-wide conference like SXSWedu. 

We had the pleasure of meeting journalists from Getting Smart and EdSurge; representatives from some of biggest companies in the biz, like Pearson and Macmillan; and even some cutting-edge kindergarten teachers. Getting to hear the thoughts of industry leaders during keynotes and panel discussions rounded out the whole SXSWedu experience. 

Gathering this many people with a shared passion for education produces an energy that is palpable. You are virtually guaranteed to leave this conference with inspiration and new friends. 

Get a glimpse into the future

What do you get when you’re surrounded by the who’s who of the edtech industry, innovative startups and panels led by industry leaders? You’ll find yourself smack dab in the middle of the buzz you’ll be hearing about for the next year. Here’s what to look for in 2012: 

• Edtech tools and software are going to have to prove their worth through analytics and insights into learning habits and the efficacy of the tools
• Edtech journalism is going to continue to grow and distinguish itself from the general category of tech journalism. Edtech startups will greatly benefit from this
• More and more education companies and schools are using the outcomes of scientific research and experiments, rather than tradition, to influence their decision making
• Plain old LMS’s are falling out of favour. It’s no longer enough to use technology for the sake of technology in education — there must be clear benefit to the learners

To all our friends we saw at SXSWedu, and to all those who will be making the trip next year, we look forward to seeing you in 2013!

The Rise of the Flipped Classroom

What Is a Flipped Classroom?

Welcome to one of the longer running buzzwords in edtech today. The term exploded in popularity just as Khan Academy was beginning to capture the public’s imagination. In 2006 Salman Khan created a library of videos that taught various subjects in easy to digest chunks. Over time the video library came to resemble one aspect of the flipped classroom philosophy: teachers could assign the videos to students to learn outside of class and at their own pace. 

The question that follows is what do students and teachers do during class time now? The traditional view is that class time is now spent doing the assigned problems that typically would have been completed as homework.

Our view emphasizes the importance of classroom collaboration, and not just access to the teacher. Classroom time can now be fully utilized for any number of active learning methods, such as small groups working on problems together. 

The Philosophy Behind Flipping Classrooms

The beauty of the flipped classroom approach is that it’s not just one methodology, but is instead a philosophy of how to approach learning. Alvan Levine recently suggested that the we can flip conferences as well. Daniel Pink suggested flipping everything from the publishing industry to HR departments. 

At Matygo we agree that the flipped class philosophy could be applied in many settings, like higher education or corporate training. If you are curious about how you might flip your teaching please sign up for a demo of our flipped classroom platform. 

Additional Resources:

The Flipped Classroom Infographic by Knewton

Three part series on the “Flipped Class” by The Daily Riff

Do you have any other great resources about the flipped classroom? Share them with everyone in the comments below. 

Teacher, Leave Those Kids Alone

Introduction to Learning Javascript

 
 Javascript has the potential to be pretty esoteric. but this format immediately showed us the practical implications. Paul asked us questions about the script he was writing and we were able to answer, then see if we were right as we watched him run the script live.
 
It felt almost like a live classroom until Paul said, “Just one more thing and then I’ll let you guys go home.” Only then did I remember that I was already there.

A First-Timers Guide to SXSWedu

SXSWedu is a 3 day conference bringing together people from all over the world to discuss and better understand where learning is headed in the technology age. 

We’re excited to dive deeper into the education industry, learn about future trends and check out all the freshly launched edtech products. 

There’s a lot of great stuff that’s going on in Austin during the SXSW conferences, so it can be a bit tricky to navigate. After combing through all the panels, finding somewhere to stay, and daydreaming about all the food we’re going to eat, we thought it would be useful to share our findings. We want to help other first-timers, educators and entrepreneurs alike, get the most out of their experience. 

Suggested SXSWedu Panels

SXSWedu has lots of great presentations from a wide variety of speakers with considerable wisdom to impart. Here’s a selection of the panels that I have deemed “do not miss”:

1. Levar Burton Keynote

Burton has been promoting literacy and creating generations of passionate readers through his work as host and executive producer of the award-winning children’s show ‘Reading Rainbow’. We expect to be delighted with the actor/director/Twitter star and his passion for sharing the love of reading. 

2. EdTech Reporting: Why It Sucks and How to Fix It

This panel, featuring Audry Watters from Hack Education, Betsy Corcoran from EdSurge and Frank Catalano from Intrinsic Strategy, will explore the highs and lows of edtech journalism. We are looking forward to benefitting from Watter’s and Corcoran’s first-hand experience in reporting. Also, companies are sure to learn what kind of news journalists are looking for and how to better pitch their stories. 

3. LAUNCHedu

This part of the conference will feature startups duking it out professionally in a pitch competition. Companies will have a couple minutes on stage to pitch their businesses to a jury that will vote on the finalists. We like to think of it as the American Idol of edtech startups so it’s bound to be exciting! Matygo will be there pitching our online classroom software against some other great companies.

Austin, Texas

Austin, Texas has an interesting vibe. It’s the live music capital of the world and some Austinites have clearly embraced the city’s unofficial slogan “Keep Austin weird”. Here are just a few ways to get to know Austin:

Where to Stay?

In other people’s houses of course! The hotel room selection around SXSW is slim pickings but Airbnb is a great solution. For around the same rate as a hotel room you can rent a room in someone’s house for the duration of your trip. In my experience, Airbnb offers beautiful homes with gracious hosts. 

Places to Eat?

The Omelletry: A fantastic breakfast and brunch place that I frequented the last time I was in Austin. If you’re looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of the conference while eating the best omelettes ever check this place out. 

III Forks: If being treated like a king and enjoying the best in steakhouse fare is your thing then you have to splurge on a dinner at III Forks. Try the sweet potato hash - it’s heavenly!

Food Trucks: Austin is crawling with great food trucks that offer interesting and delicious food combinations. Check out the Austin Food Carts app so you can find the locations of different food carts while you’re there. 

Places to Go

Austin Convention Center: This enormous, multi-purpose convention center is the home of all things SXSW. All of the SXSWedu keynotes take place in the ballrooms of the convention center so get to know the place well and you won’t get lost on one of it’s four levels. 

SXSWedu Meetups: Part of the social experience of SXSWedu will be attending meetups where there will be a better chance to converse with people outside the scheduled panels and keynotes. The meetups are focused on different topics and are sponsored by different companies so each one is sure to be interesting. 

AMD Pre-Conference: This is a one-day workshop focused on helping instructors incorporate game design into their lessons. Anyone that participates in this workshop will likely benefit from hands-on tutorials using the latest ed-tech tools. Registration is limited so be sure to snag a spot. 

There are plenty more panels, places to eat and locations to check out. Leave a comment and let us know what you’re looking forward to at SXSWedu and we can meet you there!

How to Become a CSS Ninja

This is the 5th part in a series by Rachel Balik on her experience learning to code a basic website in an online instructor-led class on Matygo.

The night before our previous class, I got a gift in the mail from my software engineer buddy in New York. I was so excited when I got it, partially because it was incredibly cool (in a nerdy way) and partially because I was actually able to understand that shirt was describing the Class, “Ninja.”

My friend keeps promising that I will truly be a CSS ninja some day, but maybe he’s just hoping that soon I will stop bothering him with lots of questions while he’s trying to do other things (such as his job).

Fortunately, it seems as though my friend may get some peace and quiet whether or not I become a “ninja”. Our instructor Andrei began class by reminding us about all the great tools available within the Matygo platform that allow us to get help from him and our fellow students all week long.

On the Matygo website, when we log on, we can see weekly assignment and additional helpful notes about it. Andrei reminded us that he also posts tips and resources throughout the week, and that if we have questions or things we want to share, we can post our own questions on the discussion board.

This was definitely added incentive to a) check the website early and often and b) do my homework in advance.

Andrei also explained that we’d be uploading our files to an FTP so our websites could be hosted on a real server (not just on our own computers.) When we upload our code to the server, he’ll be able to look at our code and easily answer questions about how to do things or why certain code isn’t working.

Another discovery that I realized would be helpful was that the notes we took on the “blackboard” in class were getting automatically updated and saved in my Google docs. I can review the hands-on stuff we did in class and refer to some of the code that’s already been created.

All these tools definitely give me new perspective and make the work seem more manageable. Now all I have to do is my homework. 

Check out how Matygo can help you reach more students like Rachel by bringing your course online.

Hello Tera!

Everyone at Matygo is very excited to welcome our newest addition, Tera Kristen, to the team. Tera will be our new Community Manger and Director of Fun (seriously, official job responsibilities include throwing office parties). 

Tera comes to us from Waterloo, Ont and from Kik Interactive. After we caught wind she was moving to Vancouver we made sure to get her first - having multiple interviews before she landed on the West coast. Not only is Tera a proven Community Manager that has been through the startup lifecycle before, she is very excited about being able to work on something as noble as education (her words) and has already noticeably contributed to our delicious Matygo kool-aid (my words). 

You will be hearing quite a bit more from Tera in the weeks and months to come through the The Learning Solution. But if you can’t wait, go ahead and sample her writings through her community management blog. I’m sure you’ll be as impressed as we were. 

Welcome Tera. :)

Paul

Putting the “Fire” Back in Firebug

This is the 4th part in a series by Rachel Balik on her experience learning to code a basic website in an online instructor-led class on Matygo.

It’s Magic? No, It’s CSS!: Class 2

This is the 3rd part in a series by Rachel Balik on her experience learning to build a basic website in an online instructor-led class on Matygo.

I’ll admit it: for one bleak moment there while I was doing my homework this week, I thought my greatest accomplishment was going to be realizing that “CSS” could also stand for “Cascading Sh*t Show.” (I know - I’m hilarious.)

However, with the help of a friend, I managed to catch the mistake that was preventing me from creating a sidebar and get that great “A-ha!” feeling that comes with writing code in your little text editor box and seeing it magically render in your browser window.

Or, as one girl in our class on Tuesday put it, “There’s this feeling of excitement that you get from making things with code that isn’t like any other kind of excitement.”

Although some people had an easier time with the homework than others, everyone was able to do it and everyone had shared in that same feeling of excitement. Personally, I sent a screenshot of my finished webpage to everyone I knew (and I must have good friends because they all acted very impressed.)

Matygo is currently using Google Hangouts to power it’s live classroom which led to a very dynamic medium for our class. First of all, we could see each other’s faces. We could also make use of notes and chat.

We spent a good portion of the class making sure that we really understood the relationship between HTML and CSS and how they work together. Andrei, our instructor, told us we needed to be crystal clear on this because if we didn’t, we would be very confused when it came time to learn Javascript.

Luckily, everyone got to participate in the conversation as we learned important things like the difference between an ID and a class. Through the combination of Andrei talking and people asking questions when they needed to, things became clearer.

It was good to clarify these building blocks and principles, but I know the true test will be this week’s homework. One thing I’ve learned is that there’s certainly going to be some struggle, (or “playing”) involved in making it work. It’s going to be important to keep in mind the building blocks and grounding principles we learned in class. And of course, I’ll keep my eyes on the prize: that completely unique feeling of coding excitement.

Learn more about Matygo and how they’re shaking up online education.      

The Building Blocks: Build a Basic Website - Class 1

This is the 2nd part in a series by Rachel Balik on her experience learning to code in an online instructor led class on Matygo.

When I was a sophomore in college, my medieval literature professor suggested that I change my major from English to Computer Engineering.

“Absolutely not!” I told him. First of all, I loved English. But more importantly, I was certain that computer engineering classes would be laborious, boring and miles over my head.

When I signed on to my first Matygo class “Build a Basic Website” I was sincerely hoping that would not turn out to be the case. Fortunately, as soon as the class began, I realized the it would embody everything was good about college, while leaving out everything that was bad.

The Good Stuff:

• Intellectual environment. Everyone in the class came with curiosity and drive.
• Like-minded people. We went around the “room” and each student said why he or she had taken the class. It was amazing to hear how each student planned to use coding skills to further professional goals - whether it was improving performance at the office or building a website.
• Homework. I know, homework doesn’t always sound like fun, but especially when it comes to new skill building, practice makes perfect. I was glad to hear that we were going to have problem sets, and go over them in class to make sure we understood.
• Knowledgeable teachers. Our two teachers, Andrei and Paul, both had strong but different backgrounds in programming and were prepared to share their knowledge and experience.

The Bad Stuff That Wasn’t There:

• A strict curriculum with no flexibility. Paul and Andrei told us that the course could be modified to meet the needs of class. If we were confused, they’d slow down and if we were killing it, they’d add material.
• Grades. Yes, we have to do homework, but we’ll have the opportunity to go over it with classmates rather than angst over getting things wrong.
• Too cool for school professors. Remember how hard it was in college to get a hold of a professor if you had questions? Paul and Andrei gave us multiple ways to contact them - including their personal email addresses.

Our first class was devoted to meeting each other through video icons and watching slides describing the curriculum. We were told to download tutorials and get started on our out-of-class work. Our assignment for the next week is to “Play with Code.” Somehow, this actually sounds like it might be fun.