Three researchers will give brief pitches of cyberlearning project ideas to a panel of CL16 Buddies that includes teachers and accessibility specialists. Pitches will summarize the need and approach of the work, information on how the project would help learners, the role of the teacher, and how the work would be mutually beneficial to research and practice. The panel will discuss each pitch, ask questions, provide feedback, and make recommendations. The audience will also have an opportunity to vote for their favorite pitch. At the end of the session, the panel’s choice and audience favorite will be awarded.

Emcees: Eric Hamilton, Kip Glazer
Presenters: Kristy Boyer, Dor Abrahamson, Ibrahim Dahlstrom-Hakki

Judges: A panel of Cyberlearning 2016 Buddies including Amar Abbott, John Derian, Traci Garff, Lauren Goldenberg, Alicia Morris, Ray Rose, Patricia Ruiz, and Beth Sanzenbacher

Notes for Participants and Judges

At last year’s meeting, we had a “shark tank” session where 3 researchers (Eric Hamilton, Emma Mercier, and Patricia Udomprasert) pitched cyberlearning project ideas to a panel of teachers and received feedback and fictional research money. This was a small session, but was very highly rated and discussed–so much so that many others who didn’t attend asked if we could scale it up for this year. So this year, we decided to make the Shark Tank a plenary session.

Last year’s participants are available to coach this year’s participants, and we will schedule a quick phone call with you to go over a few details about the session and answer any questions you might have.

We have allocated 7 minutes for each pitch, to allow time for questions and discussion. If you are using Powerpoint (or Keynote) slides, we recommend that your slides focus on images that you talk over, with minimal text.

The Shark Tank session is one way to have a discussion between cyberlearning researchers and others who aren’t always represented in our research conversations. It really is a lot of fun, too!