>> Hi, everybody and welcome to Tech Happy Hour. It's Mike Hofherr, Chief Information Officer and Vice President at The Ohio State University. Today, I am joined by Jessica Phillips.
>> Hey, everybody.
>> Jessica is our Student Program Manager for the Digital Flagship Initiative. But she is here today in her role as the Innovate 2018 Conference Director.

So the Innovate Conference is this May 11th, at the-
>> The Ohio Union, yeah.
>> The Ohio Union, but before we get to that, the most important piece here is, what are we drinking?
>> You've got a nice A&W Root Beer.
>> Made with aged vanilla, awesome. So thanks for choosing root beer.


>> I thought that root beer, it's so classic. It's so traditional.
>> Perfect, cheers.
>> Cheers.
>> So could you give our listeners a little bit of background about the Innovate Conference, where it came from, how it started and where we are today.
>> Yeah, so this is gonna be our 9th year of Innovate.

And it's always been around to help bring people together, bring people who are innovators, have that mindset of wanting to drive forward some change, try some new things, share what they've done, connect with people. And so this is another year of that where we're reaching a pretty broad audience.

Last year we had over 100 different institutions present at Innovate from all across the country in Canada, which is really exciting. We get people from K-12, we get a lot of people from Ohio State, a lot of faculty, staff, administrators, and then from our partners around this region.

We even had some people from some of the health and medical fields here in Columbus come, and we're expecting that again this year. So it gives people an opportunity to just talk about, what are we doing to bring education forward? And what are we doing that's really cool, that's innovative, that's working, that's helping students to be successful?

And that's what we're all about.
>> I remember our first Innovate Conference. I don't remember it, I wasn't here. I remember folks telling me about it. We had about 50 participants. How many folks did we have there last year?
>> Yeah, we had about 650 last year. And it seems to be growing a bit every year.


>> And I know we always have a good mix of faculty, staff and professionals from across the university. So what can our attendees expect this year? I see that we have a new format, and you know me, I always love to shake things up and Innovate a little bit.

This year we have not one, not two, but three keynote speakers.
>> Three keynotes, that's right.
>> Yeah, so you wanna talk a little bit about what they can expect, and maybe what those keynotes, and who they are, what they're gonna bring to the table?
>> Yeah, yeah.

We're definitely trying a few new things this year. And one of those is we have three power keynotes. This year, to help frame this whole topic of innovating forward and the future, we're defining that through three threads. One being Access, and so how we're think about reaching under represented populations?

What are we doing to be intentional about providing equity in technology? And how are we just really engaging with people across the state, and across the country. And so we're looking at that as that theme of Access. We have another theme for Technology. And that's going into one of the trends what we anticipate students are gonna expect from their education over the next five to ten years.

And what are we doing to inform and drive that now. And then, we have a third around Learning Environments, because we know that the places and spaces that people are learning, it's changing drastically. And so we're doing a lot right now, things are emerging, things are changing to create more mobile labs and classrooms that fit the times.

And so within those three threads, each of one of those has a power keynote who will be speaking to that particular topic.
>> Awesome.
>> Pretty exciting.
>> And did we announce them yet?
>> We did. Speaking to the topic of Access is George Couros, who has a great book called the Innovator's Mindset, which is something great to check out.

But he's all about the way they think about the future. How to create space to be creative and rethink your practices. So he'll be there to talk about that. As far as Technology, we have Bryan Alexander, who is an educational futurist. And he'll be talking a lot about how the trends can help inform our decisions now.

And Emily Pilloton will be here to talk about Learning Environments. And she does some great work around Project H Design and Girls Garage. And she's totally rethinking the ways that people are learning and the spaces that they're learning in. And so we're bringing these people who are working in there in these fields and doing some really cool things.

And I think they're gonna inspire some people to think differently about some of their work, it's very exciting.
>> That's great. I've heard all three of those folks speak at various things across the country. And to have them, all three of them here is really gonna, I think, set this conference apart from even years in the past.

So as the conference director-coordinator, who should attend Innovate? What folks at the university or outside? What type of people are you looking for?
>> That's a really, really good question. Our Innovate committee really thought about that a lot this year. And really, if you're interested in learning more about what people are doing to advance education into the future.

And maybe you haven't done a whole lot yourself yet or you're not sure what some first steps might be. This might actually be a great conference for you. We intentionally selected some programming that will help to ease people into thinking about what the future could look like. So you don't have to be really tech savvy.

You don't have to know a lot about this stuff to come to Innovate. It's a good place to learn about it. But we also have programming for people that are really advanced in this. And have maybe been trying some of these new techniques with weaving iPads into their classes, with trying how.

With trying these technologies and rethinking the way that they're practicing, teaching and learning. If you're one of those people who's been doing this for a while, it's still a great place to come and you'll get to connect with some others that have done the same. We usually have a pretty good audience of K-12.

This year, I think, we might see a little bit more because we've got George Couros who's really popular in that field. I think that sort of bridges that gap between K-12 and higher ed when we see those folks here at the conference and same thing on the other end.

I think we'd love to have some local companies attend who are looking at, well, what are our graduates coming out of school knowing how to do when it relates to technology. And so I think there's really a good space for a lot of people to come and just check out what's going on when it comes to technology and learning.


>> That's awesome. If I come to the conference and spend the day with you all, what will I walk away with? Will I be equipped to do something? Will I have some new ideas that I can apply in my classroom? Will I be able to use a new piece of software, just give me a little bit of understanding of that.


>> One of the things we emphasized as we were selecting our presenters this year, was that they really have some tangible things that people could take away and start to do right away. And some of them are gonna be very simple things. And some of them might be more advanced, where you might make a connection with somebody who you're gonna have a follow-up conversation with, go see what they've done in a little bit more depth.

Our goal, really, is that you would walk away with feeling a little bit more confident about adjusting and changing and thinking about the future. And how you're working with students, or how you're planning your curriculum, or how you're designing it, whether it's something small or something larger. I think one exciting thing for this year is we've partnered with the Steam Factory, so we're going to have this hands-on learning space called the Imaginarium.

Where we'll be able to have our attendees come in and just play with some tech toys, do some demos, probably get to experience some cool things like augmented reality and virtual reality. And do that in a safe space where they can have some dialogue and some connections to colleagues.

And just really kind get their feet wet a little bit in some of this, which I think will be really exciting.
>> That's really cool, I know the folks at the Steam Factory are really excited about that-
>> They're awesome.
>> I was talking to Jim Fowler and Charlene and others down there so they're happy to be a participant.

I've talked about what my favorite part of Innovate is and it's really about seeing folks come together from across the university with these new and exciting ideas for teaching. So what's yours?
>> So-
>> I took the good one.
>> You did take the good one. Dang, all right, so I think I have a unique perspective on the conference this year, having been behind the scenes in some of the planning.

And my favorite part so far, has just been working with the team that puts Innovate together and with our partners. With UCAT, with the Steam Factory, with people across campus that we really work with on this conference. And seeing a step back and to create space for really creative thinking this year was really fun to just look at, well what can we do to shake things up a little bit this year, to try something new.

Cuz we're Innovate Conference. So we need to be trying new things, and this year I think is gonna be a great example of how you can shift a few things while keeping what makes the conference great there. And so I think that's been my favorite part on the back-end, as far as what I'm looking forward to for the conference this year, I have to say we have these ed talks that we're doing this year as one of the things we're shaking it up.

And we're gonna have some really great voices having dynamic dialog on stage with questions from the audience. And I'm really excited to see how that goes. And what that conversation is like with some of our power keynotes and people at OSU. Even some people from the community as a part of these panels.

So that's probably, I think what I'm looking forward to this year, is seeing how some of these new ideas are gonna roll forward.
>> That's great, so we always end with an interesting question.
>> Okay.
>> So what is something about you that would surprise people?
>> So I was once onstage with David Copperfield in Las Vegas.


>> Wow, that's good. What did he do? Did he like cut you in half?
>> He had me hold a scorpion.
>> Did he turn it into something like a rose or?
>> I don't remember anything that happened because I was focused on holding the scorpion.
>> Part of the magic.

It's part of the magic.
>> He made me sign something. I don't know, yeah.
>> Awesome, so Jessica, thank you so much for being here, and before we sign off, I want to give you a chance to plug some dates.
>> Yes.
>> What do people need to do right now?


>> Yes, so right now, visit the Innovate website, innovateu.osu.edu and check out a little bit more about our keynotes. Registration is open, and we'll look forward to the event on May 11th.
>> Yeah, again, Jessica, thank you for joining me today and for giving us the low down on Innovate Conference.

Again, Innovate Conference is at the Ohio Union on May 11th, we look forward to seeing anyone there that wants to join us. I'm Mike Hofherr, Vice President and Chief Information Officer. And thanks for having a drink in Talk and Tech.