The 2nd annual Open edX Conference was filled with thought-provoking conversations, engaging presentations, and practical takeaways. More than 200 Open edX enthusiasts, developers, users, researchers, and educators traveled from around the world to join the discussion. Those who weren’t able to attend in person were able to get updates and participate by watching keynotes and selected breakout sessions via livestreaming. All talks from the conference are now freely available to watch on our Open edX YouTube channel.
Here are some of our favorite moments from these amazing two days:
Mitch Resnick kicked us off with his keynote on the Ps of learning: projects, peers, play, and passion.
How can we give P’s a chance? — Mitch Resnick of Media Lab delivering his keynote #OpenedX2015 pic.twitter.com/ZF17FAOnw2
— Arti Sharma (@artivibes) October 12, 2015
EdX CEO Anant Agarwal was on site to learn more about the work our contributors are doing, and made friends with the team from Knotes:
Glad to come from France for this #openedx2015 and proud to get our pic with @agarwaledu, CEO of @edXOnline, our hero pic.twitter.com/pZdR6lq9q1
— Guillaume LAURIE (@GuillaumeLaurie) October 13, 2015
While he was there, Anant made an announcement about the recent launch of a large Russian Open edX platform…
Openedu.ru, open edX as Russian National platform. 1800 courses worldwide. Cool. #OpenedX2015
— Sheryl Barnes (@sheryl66) October 12, 2015
…and revealed some impressive Open edX statistics:
More than twice as many courses running on @OpenEdX sites as running on http://t.co/AtwPpHturd. Wow! #OpenedX2015 pic.twitter.com/fPNjVRsm0v
— David Baumgold (@singingwolfboy) October 12, 2015
Mark Sadecki, Accessibility Specialist at edX, discussed accessibility efforts at edX and accessibility-related updates to the edX source code:
Mark Sadecki from #edX telling us how we can make software more accessible #openedX2015 pic.twitter.com/ilvULuWaaF
— Vanessa Ruano (@NessaTR) October 13, 2015
We got some great advice on how to contribute to the Open edX platform:
The Zen of Pull Requests – get buy-in, post your code, be responsive to reviews – @antoviaque #openedx2015 pic.twitter.com/thw4uQ8jxE
— Open edX (@OpenEdX) October 13, 2015
With a conference that requires so much brain power, sustenance is key. Thanks to some gracious sponsors, the food was pretty amazing:
A #teaser for the reception, courtesy of @ExtensionEngine. #openedx2015 pic.twitter.com/PCaK4OKj2w
— Open edX (@OpenEdX) October 12, 2015
Philippe Chiu from IONISx gave the world a new perspective on effectively organizing remote participation:
What’s the audience doing while attending to a talk at #openedx2015? Check this out! https://t.co/dRi6xiXf5D
— Philippe Chiu (@pchiu33) October 13, 2015
Jeff Jaffe, CEO at the W3C closed the conference with a keynote, including a powerful reminder of why web standards matter:
When it comes to open standards for web technologies, we are all stakeholders@jeff_jaffe #openedx2015 @w3c pic.twitter.com/06yWqSVAo0
— Arti Sharma (@artivibes) October 13, 2015
Thank you to everyone who shared the story of #OpenedX2015!
Videos from the conference are now posted on the Open edX YouTube channel, and hackathon presentations are also available to view online courtesy of Nate Aune of Appsembler. Check them out to get an idea of what people are working on, and how their projects are progressing. Feel free to contact any of the participants to see if you can help.
Thank you, so much, to everyone who attended. We had an amazing time thanks to your enthusiasm, ideas, collaboration, and shared commitment of the Open edX mission.
If you attended the conference, please fill out our conference feedback survey to let us know how we can make next year even better. We look forward to seeing you at Open edX 2016!
