ASU+GSV Creators

ASUGSVSummit
8 min readJan 21, 2021

--

A Global Competition Showcasing the Top 15 ASU+GSV Creators

Kayley Zulla, 2nd place winner, on set for her video.

Community is core to the ASU+GSV Summit. With more than 500 speakers, 15,000 attendees, and 135 countries represented at the 11th annual ASU+GSV Summit, we believe innovation can come from anywhere when we work together to change the world for good. Thus, we launched a global competition inviting our attendees to become ASU+GSV Creators and share their ideas with the world.

The summit is more than the few days we convene annually, it is a movement. This movement is about identifying the top trends in digital learning, brainstorming ways to create access to education for all, and then acting on our learnings to be a catalyst for change in our schools, communities, and businesses. Creators did just that. They leveraged their learnings from the summit into their own insights about the future of education and the workforce. Community members including educators, investors, students, and founders created micro-courses, blog posts, or videos to showcase their ideas. Here are the Top 15 prize winners:

1st Place: Trustin Yoon → Increasing Equity through EdTech

Trustin Yoon explores his upbringing with South Korean immigrant parents who fought for his education at an elite university. The piece brilliantly weaves together multiple summit panels, major trends in EdTech, the biggest challenges in education, and potential solutions.

“I have never viewed the classroom as my ideal learning environment, and I firmly believe that it is through alternative approaches to education that will ignite passion for learning that can be more effective than traditional methods. Expanding the boundaries of how we think about education will be able to greater reach and impact students who are motivated to learn in vastly different ways.” — Trustin Yoon.

2nd Place: Kayley Zulla → ASU+GSV Recap

10-year-old Kayley Zulla takes us on a magical journey of her favorite panels and networking events from the ASU+GSV summit during a must see video (trust us, you’re going to want to click play!) This high production quality video transports us to some of Kayley’s favorite moments complete with costumes and props.

“Kayley is very interested in technology, computers, programming and video production. She is very much an outside-the-box thinker, so watching the summit and being part of the competition was perfect for her! We just recently started homeschooling now to help her satisfy her quest for cutting edge knowledge.” — Andy Zulla, Kayley’s father.

3rd Place: Meagan Loyst → Top 4 EdTech Trends I’m Watching as a Seed Stage Investor

Meagan Loyst, VC Investor at Lerer Hippeau, dives into emerging trends in EdTech through the lens of an early stage investor.

“EdTech is a space that is impact-driven, tangible, and seeing a massive uptick in adoption across the value chain due to COVID-19. Some say that consumer adoption has been brought forward by a magnitude of 5–10 years, lowering customer acquisition costs and driving a great deal of staying power and habit formation in the minds of consumers. And for a space that had ~3% digital penetration pre-COVID, investors are taking notice and figuring out which areas of EdTech and companies are truly here to stay for the long haul.” — Meagan Loyst.

4th Place: Caitlin Knowles → Virtual Reality and Education

PhD student Caitlin Knowles analyzes 3 panels on applications of virtual reality in education and the workforce: A New Reality: AR/VR Applications in K12, VR @ Work, and Dreamscape Learn: How Hollywood and HigherEd are Transforming Education through Exploration.

5th Place: Dr. Mary Beth Cunat → Resource Lesson Plan for Early Childhood

Dr. Mary Beth Cunat, Principal at Spectrum Progressive School of Rockford, presents a 9 session lesson plan that leverages the ASU+GSV Early Childhood channel. The lesson plan considers the “whole child” needs of young learners, the support of their caregivers, and the resources available to empower both.

10 Finalists:

Tamarin Butcher → Planning Matrix: The Future of Higher Education

Tamarin Butcher presents an asynchronous course outline for a 7-week continuing education course on The Future of Higher
Education. Using ASU+GSV 2020 Summit materials, students will tackle the question of what higher education will look like after 2020.

Joanna Huang → The Promises and Perils of AI in Education

Joanna Huang writes about the applications of artificial intelligence in education. The blog analyzes potential pitfalls of AI including data/privacy, equity and bias, and advocacy as well as opportunities to leverage the powerful technology to further education.

“People also have the assumption that if AI is so powerful, then it can solve all education problems. However, AI is not the panacea for things wrong with education because it’s not a perfect system and cannot be 100% accurate. When stakes are high such as determining the future progression of a learner, AI can underperform and make a wrong decision a lot of the time. The impact of a wrong decision can have negative consequences for a learner and without checkpoints or intervention along the way, it can be harmful.” — Joanna Huang.

Dr. Lisa Dierker, Harrison Tan, and Laura Pérez Maquedano → Higher Education Innovation

Dr. Lisa Dierker, Harrison Tan, and Laura Pérez Maquedano of Wesleyan University share their insights based on the ASU+GSV Summit’s panel No Textbooks, No Lectures, No Right Answers: Is This What HigherEd Needs? The video explores wicked problems that students face and provides actionable solutions at every level of the education system.

Natalie Grune → Education to Employment

This interactive micro-course complete with audio and visuals summarizes the ideas of the ASU+GSV Summit panelists, specifically regarding Education-2-Employment pathways. The course combines information from various panel videos to share an overview of current education to employment pathways and pose discussion questions for how we can bridge students to the right skills and therefore the best jobs for them.

“Now, more than ever, that mission is imperative. There are high levels of unemployment and an urgent need to get people back to work. However, COVID-19 has accelerated some changes within the education and workforce — we are seeing new skillsets required in jobs that traditional education isn’t teaching.” — Natalie Grune

Kim Scott → The Last Mile Strategy: How to Successfully Communicate Changes in Education and the Workforce to the Public — and Empower Our Youth to Help Win a Global Race

“Summit co-founder Michael Moe’s opening keynote highlighted the positive and negative impacts the pandemic has had on education and workforce development as well as progress brought on by the sudden, large scale shift to online learning. The digital learning market has permanently changed. Before COVID-19 it was physical and linear growth and after the disease it will be exponential growth and digital. This is creating a second boom for “Weapons of Mass Instruction” that will increase access to higher education globally and support workers having to adapt to the “Pre-k to grey” lifelong learning model.” — Kim Scott.

Dr. Melody Lang → Micro-Course on the Future of Higher Education X Mindstone

This interactive learning pathway takes participants on a journey to answer the key questions: What are the existing challenges with the traditional system? What should be taught and how should it be taught? What are alternative options to traditional ones? The ultimate goal of the interactive lesson is to guide learners to create their own vision for the future of higher education.

Todd Macadangdang → ASU+GSV Virtual Summit Review

Todd Macadangdang reviews a panel on the Power of Career Development to Create a more Effective, Efficient, and Equitable System. In his review, he speaks about the need to shift the culture of education and questions if standardize testing aids students in finding the right career path.

Turner DeMuth → Bursting HigherEd’s Bubble

(This video was created by the ASU+GSV Summit.)

Turner DeMuth analyzes a talk by Dan Rosenweig, President & CEO of Chegg, The Pandemic Has Burst The Bubble of Higher Ed. In 2016, Dan Rosensweig predicted the Higher Education Bubble would burst. He also explained how the class of 2020 learned differently from others and the need to innovate. In 2020 multiple predictions from Dan have become reality.

“Four years after his first appearance at the ASU+GSV Summit in 2016, Dan Rosensweig, President & CEO of Chegg, returned to center stage (or “center screen”) to discuss his key takeaway from four years prior: Higher Education is a bubble. Today, he argued, that bubble has burst as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.What is interesting about Rosensweig’s perspective is that, although coronavirus may have burst this bubble, Higher Ed institutions caused it.” — Turner De Muth

Joslyn Villalpando → A Visual Arts Lesson on Public Spaces and Statues

In this k-12 visual arts lesson, students re-imagine public spaces without confederate statues and all they represent. The lesson explores symbolism based on the fireside chat Tearing Down the Statues with Mitch Landrieu, former Mayor of New Orleans, and Deborah Quazzo, Managing Partner of GSV Ventures.

Dr. John Edwards → Breaking Down Barriers to Blended Learning

Dr. John Edwards speaks about ways to maximize effective blended learning based on rigor, differentiation, real world applications, and immediate feedback to students. His video integrates learnings from the ASU+GSV pre-show event with Eric Yuan, Founder and CEO, Zoom, Michael Chasen, Founder & CEO, ClassEdu Inc., Deborah Quazzo, Managing Partner, GSV Ventures, and Lev Gonick, CIO, ASU.

The ASU+GSV Summit would like to thank every community member who joined the competition to become an ASU+GSV Creator. We are proud to be surrounded by a community of innovators passionate about creating access for all in the future of education. You can register to join our next summit here.

--

--

ASUGSVSummit

The world’s leading digital learning summit bringing together educators, founders, and investors.