Last year another part of the whole South by Southwest experience was initiated, SXSWedu.  While it shares the South By name and includes some of those involved in its older cousin, SXSWedu is considered a separate conference. This year’s convention will be March 6 – 8 at the Downtown Hilton in Austin.

Highlights include a roster of those in the Distinguished Speaker Series. They include Steven Farr of Teach for America and Mike Feinberg of KIPP Houston,  as well as Catherine Casserly, the CEO of Creative Commons,  The University of Texas’s S. Craig Watkins, a professor in radio, technology, and film whose research focuses  on social and media behaviors, is another.

One of those generating quite a buzz is game designer Jane McGonigal, whose SuperBetter was designed as a therapeutic game to promote healing in those dealing with mild brain injuries – and originally helped in her own recuperation from an injury. SuperBetter has been applied to help many feel better faster through any illness or injury, or even chronic conditions such as diabetes, migraine or asthma.

Then there are each day’s keynote speakers: LeVar Burton, a successful director, writer, and actor, is familiar to many for roles as Kunta Kinté in the miniseries Roots, as Geordi La Forge in the sci fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and for public television’s Reading Rainbow.  He is one of the 100 most-followed people on Twitter with more than 1.74 million followers currently. Marjorie Scardino, the chief executive of Pearson, an international educational and media corporation consisting of Pearson Education, Penguin, and the Financial Times Group gives the keynote address on Day 2. The final keynote speaker is U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

By any standards, the quality of the notable figures in education and beyond who will be presenting is outstanding and reflects well on SXSWedu.

The various presentations and panels during the concurrent sessions address a variety of themes of interest in both K-12 and Higher Education. Separate strands focus on early childhood, digital content, assessment, college and career readiness, general as well as higher education, gaming and learning, statewide portals, virtual learning and courses, research and evaluation, Project Share, open educational resources, and emerging trends. Panels can be solo or duo presentations or panel discussions.

Panelists and presenters are chosen through the Panel Picker, an online system for presenting programming suggestions and proposals. As with the Panel Picker for other SXSW conventions, members of the SXSWedu community review, vote, and comment about the various proposals before the final line-up is selected.

There is much to interest anyone involved in any aspect of education, including parents and their kids, teachers of an array of subjects and levels, after-school programs which provide significant educational curriculum and support, administrators and personnel at education-related agencies, researchers, and those involved in producing content, constructing technological devices to enhance instruction, or marketing assessment or other products. The biggest problem attendees will encounter is choosing between all the interesting choices.

For instance, a number of educators are exploring innovative ways to use Microsoft Kinect for Xbox 360 in the classroom to apply research findings that even 10 minutes of physical activity in conjunction with academics can aid memory and increase retention. Interactive Gaming and Student Achievement On related lines, Gaming: The Answer to Success in the Classroom addresses some of the key issues involved in ensuring that gaming actually is successful in bringing about achievement gains.

More mainstream forms of digital learning are well-represented in the concurrent sessions. From using iPads and apps for learners from kindergarten to college, or  delivering content through e-textbooks, computers and webcasting, SXSWedu has it all.

One that should be of interest to educators of most age groups, especially in higher ed, is Virginia Tech’s John Boyer and his instructional technology specialist Katie Pritchard’s panel Supersizing the Classroom: 3000 Students & Beyond, as well as several other sessions that discuss using social media and other forms of digital technology in the classroom.

Those interested in similar cutting-edge approaches to learning – and even more – may also want to check out PBS KIDS Interactive Vice President Sara DeWitt as she discusses A Transmedia Approach to Learning.

Google Inc’s Jaime Casap, a first generation American who grew up a minority and in poverty in Hell’s Kitchen, New York in a family with a single mother on welfare, overcame great odds to graduate from college and complete a Master’s degree. In Education as a Silver Bullet, Jaime will share his story and discuss the interaction of society’s expectations and other intangible but real factors in breaking the cycle of poverty and achieving beyond all expectation.

This year SXSWedu inaugurated LAUNCHedu, a competition to accelerate development of education-related startups. LAUNCHedu Winners Session is a chance to learn about the winners’ innovative approaches to improving learning.

Like SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu aims to do much more than just provide participants with information on the hot trends in their fields or tools and resources available to them. It also has a variety of ways to meet people who share interests, hopefully sparking creative conversations, collaboration, and inspiration. Meet Ups have been organized for many of the content strands as well as for early birds before each day’s session and for hospitality at the end of the day. Then there’s the registrant directory, EduSOCIAL, which includes search and messaging features to help registrants locate and connect with colleagues, partners, clients, or others as well as to make new connections.

One event designed to facilitate social connections, was the recent joint meet-up for SXSWedu attendees and Texas Tribune supporters and guests on February 23 at Max’s Wine Dive in Austin. The gathering was a chance, after brief welcomes from the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith and SXSWedu Executive Director Ron Reed, to kick back and meet other participants and the occasional panelist.

For those fortunate enough to attend, it provided the opportunity to get to know people and their diverse reasons for participating in SXSWedu and allowed participants to begin building relationships that make for a better conference experience and that just might open unexpected doors in the future.