As part of our work to equitably advance the future of teaching and digital innovation, Teachers College teamed up with leading tech firm StartEd to welcome approximately 600 participants for Ed Tech Week 2024 — an innovative conference connecting key players from the classroom to the board room in pursuit of solutions to the greatest challenges facing students and educators today.
“Let us collectively ensure that children's learning and well-being remain at the forefront of ed tech design and implementation. This focus is not just our responsibility; it's our opportunity to shape a brighter, more inclusive future through technology,” said President Thomas Bailey during his address at the College’s Smith Learning Theater on Oct. 17. “Today we extend a call to action to our partners, ed tech developers and implementers…The future of educational technology is in our hands. Let's design it wisely, with intention, creativity, and always with the best interests of our young learners at heart.”
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Lalitha Vasudevan, the College’s Vice Dean for Digital Innovation and Managing Director of DFI. (Photo courtesy of DFI)
Jonathan Harber, founder of StartEd; Charles Lang, Senior Executive Director of DFI; Edward Metz, Program Manager of Institute of Education Sciences; Erin Higgins, Program Manager of Institute of Education Sciences; Ash Kaluarachchi, CEO of StartEd. (Photo: DFI)
Experts from the College’s Digital Futures Institute led TC’s involvement in the expo — the latest marquee milestone in their dual mandate of service and scholarship since its launch in 2020.
“Our partnership with StartEd on this week’s festivities is the latest chapter in our shared commitment to advancing technology’s potential to benefit education,” said Lalitha Vasudevan, the College’s Vice Dean for Digital Innovation and Managing Director of DFI. “From advising on critical and ethical engagement of AI in the classroom to helping educators develop multimodal pedagogy, TC’s Digital Futures Institute has focused on tangible impact since our founding — and we’re looking forward to continuing this important work with our colleagues in the field.”
Explore just some of our favorite moments from Ed Tech Week 2024 below.
(Photo courtesy of StartEd)
Representatives from the Digital Futures Institute, Pop and Play podcast, the Games Research Lab, the Transformative Learning Technologies Lab (TLTL) and Snow Day Learning Lab showcased the exciting innovative work happening at TC. Lucius Von Joo and Chris Moffett from DFI demonstrated an automated, 3D-printed replica of a centuries-old Czech marionette, drawing connections between the ancient art form, modern technologies and, of course, education.
(Photo: StartEd)
In addition to demonstrating their work, TC’s Paulo Blikstein and Nathan Holbert showcased a few of the projects created at TLTL and the Snow Day Learning Lab, such as the GoGo Board, an open source learning platform offering a low-cost entry to robotics and scientific sensing, as well as jewelry and tiles created from biomaterials like mycelium. TC’s Joey Lee also teamed up with Dennis Morgan of the Harlem CoLab to demonstrate innovative examples in educational gaming.
Later, tech experts, school leaders and more traveled uptown on Thursday, Oct. 17, to continue festivities at Teachers College.
Visitors to Teachers College participated in a campus tour to learn more about the College’s emphasis on digital innovation. (Photo: DFI)
The day began with the EdTech Week Talent Fair, during which Teachers College students connected with industry leaders and potential employers in Everett Lounge. More than nine companies showcased their opportunities in the opportunity — co-hosted with TC NEXT — while students networked and received complementary headshots.
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(Photo: DFI)
(Photo: DFI)
(Photo: DFI)
(Photo: DFI)
Festivities continued with the exclusive lunch-and-learn session, “Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street? Designing EdTech for Impact,” during which participants made their own muppets while hearing from industry leaders as they engaged in their own hands-on learning.
(Photo: DFI)
Vasudevan led the conversation with experiential learning experts, including Emily Reardon, Director of User Experience at Sesame Workshop. In her work, Reardon develops innovative technologies for play-based learning, navigating the complexities that make an effective learning tool.
Design is always an expression of values…The design principles I think about and that many people at Sesame think about are these ideas of agency, engagement, growth and social connection.
(Photo: DFI)
“Design is always an expression of values…The design principles I think about and that many people at Sesame think about are these ideas of agency, engagement, growth and social connection,” explains Reardon, who has transitioned from working on Sesame’s television projects to more digital-based learning. “For the TV show, the story is very linear. For digital, you can think of them as recipe ingredients. So how much point of view do we need? How much character do we need? What do we think about tone? And you're just adding and subtracting.”
In addition to developing their own science-based learning materials for kids, Sesame scholars like Michael Preston (Ph.D. ’10, Cognitive Studies in Education) are working to make best practices for child-centered technology design more widely available. The executive director of Sesame’s Joan Ganz Cooney Center, a research and innovation lab, Preston sees these efforts as critical to advancing tech that aids child development.
If you feel very mission-driven and want to achieve a certain kind of positive outcome for kids, that's a good sign for us that you're willing to take the potentially more arduous, yet also more rewarding path.
(Photo: DFI)
“How do we take this very thoughtful, long-term, expensive, rigorous process that we use to make media more accessible?” explains Preston, who also spoke at the launch of DFI’s Play & Wellbeing initiative last winter. “If you feel very mission-driven and want to achieve a certain kind of positive outcome for kids, that's a good sign for us that you're willing to take the potentially more arduous, yet also more rewarding path.”
Play-based learning expertise continued with panelist Azadeh Jamalian (Ph.D. ’14, Cognitive Studies in Education), CEO and founder of The GIANT Room — a co-design creative hub for kids, families, and educators.
[AI] is a tool that puts learners in the seat of power.
(Photo: DFI)
"For us, AI was an opportunity to encourage kids to articulate their ideas and build their visions,” explains Jamalian, for whom empowerment is a core component to the success of The GIANT Room and other learning experiences. “We always introduce AI as another tool that gives children control of what they want to do and learn. It's a tool that puts learners in the seat of power."
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(Photo: DFI)
(Photo: DFI)
(Photo: DFI)
A networking reception in the Smith Learning Lab was a fitting close to the events at TC, bringing together industry leaders and edtech innovators as well as representatives from the William T. Grant Foundation, U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences (IES), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Tools Competition for an afternoon of relationship building and opportunity seeking.
The networking reception mirrored the potential created when StartEd partnered with TC for EdTech Week. “Partnerships like these are a force multiplier for innovation,” explained Charles Lang, Senior Executive Director of DFI, who served as the principal lead in the joint effort and sees collaboration as essential to the field’s advancement.
Vasudevan and George Kledaras, a member of TC’s Board of Trustees, welcomed the eager audience and introduced Charles Elliot, Field CTO of Research and Education at Google. “AI doesn’t level the playing field. It creates a new one,” said Elliot, whose presentation outlined Google’s LearnLM, a suite of generative AI tools designed specifically for learning and teaching.
After the formal program was over, attendees were invited to network with each other in areas dedicated to the focus of The Public Good: sustainability, teacher education, artificial intelligence and public health.
Learn more about the Digital Futures Institute and digital innovation work happening at Teachers College.