Math Love, Game-Based Learning, And More From NPR Ed At #SXSWEdu

It's not quite as glamorous as the way our colleagues at NPR Music do it, but this week, the NPR Ed team will be heading down to Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest Edu conference.

In its fifth year, the conference brings together — sometimes uneasily — educators and entrepreneurs, makers and marketers. Among this year's speakers are quite a few who've been previously featured on our site, including Building A Better Teacher author Elizabeth Green, education professor Julian Vasquez Heilig and "coder bootcamp" founder Jake Schwartz.

50 Great Teachers

LA Johnson/NPR

On Tuesday, senior team member Claudio Sanchez moderates a panel with the 2014 National Teacher of the Year, Sean McComb. And I'm going to be in a conversation about the future of assessment with Michelle Riconscente of Glasslab, a game-based testing startup.

On Wednesday morning our team is hosting a summit on "Insights from Great Teachers." It grows out of our 50 Great Teachers series and features Sarah Hagan of Oklahoma, who is also featured on the blog and All Things Considered this week. You can check out her blog "Math=Love" here.

Also on our panel: Shelly Sanchez Terrell, a highly connected educator, founder of the #edchat hashtag on Twitter. And August "Sandy" Merz, an Arizona teacher who works with the Center for Teaching Quality.

If you're interested, follow the conversation at #50GreatTeachers over on Twitter. And if you're in Austin, holler. We'll report back next week with the most interesting trends and new ideas we come across!