EdTech Orlando Meetup: Building a Community of Innovation

EdTech is a growing area of business and educational focus  in Central Florida. The first EdTech Orlando Meetup was organized by Gregg Pollack  at Envy Labs/Code School in Downtown Orlando on March 27.

Gregg talked about the future of online education to a crowd of educators, edtech entrepreneurs, and other interested in this field. The key part of his talk included:

– Why the online learning is growing exponentially.

– 10 teaching techniques which are migrating from the classroom to the Internet.

– Guided tour through 8 different startups who are innovating in the education space, each focusing on different techniques.

The 8 startups:

Code School http://www.codeschool.com/ Code School teaches web technologies in the comfort of your browser with video lessons, coding challenges, and screencasts.

Coursera https://www.coursera.org/  Social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Creating MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).

Thinkful http://www.thinkful.com/ Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery online. Work one-on-one with mentors who review your work and teach best practices.

EdX https://www.edx.org/ EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web. Creating MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).

Craftsy http://craftsy.com A community of people who love to make things. They learn from, inspire and help each other. It one of the best education and resources for crafters.

Code Avengers http://www.codeavengers.com/ Code Avengers courses currently teach HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript, the 3 languages you must learn to create web apps and web sites. In the future we may offer other languages.

VIM Adventures http://vim-adventures.com/  An online game based on VIM’s keyboard shortcuts. It’s the “Zelda meets text editing” game. So come have some fun and learn some VIM!

Method of Action http://method.ac/ Method of Action is composed of challenges. Each time you attempt a challenge, three experienced users discuss it amongst themselves. They don’t know who you are, or your level of experience. You earn experience when they approve your attempt, giving you access to new levels.

Hack Design http://hackdesign.org/ Learn at your own pace. With articles, videos, and tutorials curated by some of the world’s best designers, there’s no easier way to learn design this year.

Ready to join us for the next EdTech Orlando Meetup? Join the meetup group http://www.edtechorlando.org/ and come out to the next EdTech Orlando Meetup on April 17th at 7pm at Envy Labs. Christine Ortiz will be talking about why EdTech is bad for Ed Reform (and why it’s the only thing that can save it).