My company, Globaloria, co-sponsored the Austin Education Game Jam (March 7-14), a professional game development contest inspiring the creation of high quality and commercially viable video games for education. It was inspiring to see game developers make mobile and online games with education focus. This competition continues the White House Game Jam and President Obama’s vision that education should be fun, interactive, and always evolving with students’ needs. Scott Lipton (Network Director of South/Central, Globaloria) organized it in collaboration with Erik Martin (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Education Technology), Sean Duffy (Founder, EdTech Austin), Chelsea Biggerstaff (STEM Programs Coordinator, Skillpoint Alliance), Drew Scheberle (Senior Vice President, Austin Chamber of Commerce) and their fellow colleagues. The Austin Game Jam launch at Capital Factory. After a week, finalists and winners were announced at the Geek Stage of the Gaming Expo at SXSWInteractive. The Austin gaming community came together to participate in the development of new, high-quality games for education. Sharing events from the week that started at SXSWedu and ended at SXSWInteractive.

Good day #austin! Getting ready for #austineducationgamejam w @eriklaes of @OfficeofEdTech & @slipton of @globaloria pic.twitter.com/7YKvOQwNoe

— Idit Harel (@Idit) March 7, 2015

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It’s that time of the year again when everyone gathers for the biggest edtech event – SXSWedu! SXSWedu Conference and Festival fosters innovation in learning by hosting a diverse and energetic community of stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds in education. Held from March 9-12 this year, I was able to attend a variety of events and even got to invite students from local Globaloria programs in Austin to display their games at the SXSWedu Playground! So fortunate that I was able to attend great keynotes and presentations, and attend some really good events and gatherings, such as the GoogleFiber party and the Edutopia gathering. Highlight of the event for me was getting to meet Guy Kawasaki (Chief Evangelist of Canva, formerly Apple) promote his new book “Art of the Start 2.0“. I highly recommend reading it. As always, my congratulations to Ron Reed (Executive Producer, SXSWedu) and his team for putting on a great event! Here are some tweets from my SXSWedu 2015 experience!

The youngest game-coders in #Austin give demos at Playground #SXSWedu cc: @EdTechAustin @globaloria pic.twitter.com/YSpeF7yRT3

— Idit Harel (@Idit) March 9, 2015

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SXSWedu is an annual highlight for me. I love Austin. Globaloria has been active in Austin schools since 2009. We recently grew to many schools in Texas, and in 2014, we’ve established a small local team and office in Austin. Every year, I look forward to catching up with old friends and colleagues and meeting new acquaintances at SXSWedu. In recent years, I also participated in the EdTechWomen Networking Mixer, founded by my friends Sehreen and Margaret where I met so many wonderful comrades in educational technology, including Caroline Vander Ark and Carri Schneider of Getting Smart. Can’t wait for our next meetup!

Sehreen Noor Ali and Magaret Roth, Co-Founders of EdTechWomen

Getting smarter riding the elevator after @EdTechWomen w @cvanderark & @CarriSchneider of @Getting_Smart #SXSWedu pic.twitter.com/pWisi0Kkcr

— Idit Harel (@Idit) March 10, 2015