Back from Camp SXSWedu

At the beginning of March, I spoke at SXSWedu in Austin, Texas on “In The Trenches with K-12 Design Thinking” with Trey Boden, Dan Ryder and Alyssa Gallagher. Together, we  made a diverse panel speaking about the nitty gritty, down and dirty secrets of doing design thinking in schools.

In the short 1-hour panel, we talked about everything from getting started, the challenges of make time and space for design thinking, the value of light touch design thinking and developing a culture to support failing up. 

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Being a part of the panel, always re-inspires me for the work that we are doing and reminds me how lucky we are to be thinking through some seriously wicked problems. As the consultant on the panel, I am humbled to be asked to be a part of the conversation and to be valued for an outsider perspective. It is a welcomed position to be in from when I first started being involved in education conversations.

The best part of being on this panel was the chance to sit alongside Trey, Dan and Alyssa. This group came together from our Twitter Chat community, every Wednesday night at 9pm EST we get together on the hashtag #dtk12chat and talk about everything from design thinking in elementary school, focusing on the process rather than the product to education and social change. Every time I join in, I know I am bound to have a fruitful conversation and catch up with old and new friends.

For many of us, SXSWedu was our first face-to-face meeting with a group of people who we have been talking to for nearly 8 months. This week quickly turned into the foundation of friendships and community that I hadn’t anticipated. The greatest conversations were the ones that happened outside of the conference usually over a table of delicious Austin food. I realized that this is what it must feel like to go to Summer Camp. You never want to miss a moment of hanging out and yet your brain is drained from the stimulation. It was amazing knowing that at any moment at a conference of over 3000 people a friendly face was never too far away.

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Our community is built on a culture of “Yes, and”, challenging assumptions and nurturing one another to fail up. I think this fostered connections and welcomed unexpected conversations simply because it was built on a foundation of design thinking.

We welcomed others to join in our chaos at a DTk12 Live from SXSWedu chat experience. It was too much fun being part of the The Show aka Dan Ryder as Oprah at SXSWedu and I think the very nature of being in the same place with Trey and Dan on the show to close off our excitement is something I will always remember and cherish.

Check out our madness:

 

 

SxSW Edu: In the Trenches with K-12 Design Thinking

This week Jennifer Chan & Exhibit Change are in Austin, Texas for the 4-Day SxSWedu conference.

This is a jam-packed week filled with some of the most energetic and innovative leaders from all aspects of the education system in North America. This week we’re looking forward to making new connections, exploring potential collaborations, and pushing the conversation of how to bring positive change through design thinking to the way we teach and learn.

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Starting off the week strong, Jenn joined 3 other speakers yesterday on the panel “In the Trenches with K-12 Design Thinking.”  Not only was it a great conversation about learning through failure and the challenges and opportunities of using design thinking, it brought to life many of the great relationships that have formed through the weekly #dtk12chat conversations.

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Stay tuned for more updates from #SxSWedu as the week unfolds. Also follow Jennifer Chan on Twitter to see the action as it happens.

 

ECOO 2013 Bingo

I am heading to ECOO later today and presenting tomorrow. While watching some of the twitter conversation. I am inspired from Audrey Watters work at #SXSWedu and figured I would take it upon myself to see where I could contribute some reality gaming to the conference.

Let’s see what happens and what I might learn from this experiment.

If you are around at ECOO tomorrow, come check out my panel with Andrew Campbell on “How Technology Can Break Down The Walls of School?

Play along via twitter at #ecoo13 or face-to-face 🙂

ECOO Bingo