12 Ways to Dive into AI in Education at SXSW EDU

• By Rhea Kelly
• 02/12/26

This March 9-12, the SXSW EDU Conference & Festival returns to Austin, TX, to celebrate innovation, experimentation, and learning across every stage of education. Attendees will tackle education's most important issues and trends through a wide variety of sessions, workshops, hands-on experiences, and more.

Sessions focused on artificial intelligence in K-12 education have proliferated on the SXSW EDU agenda this year, offering multifaceted ways to engage with the topic. Here are 12 of our top picks.

 

1) Keynote: Keeping Teachers at the Center of AI in Schools
Adeel Khan, founder and CEO of MagicSchool AI, will share how teachers are discovering new ways to save time, avoid burnout, and enhance learning — including what's working and what's not.

2) The AI Time Machine: Use AI to Build the Future of Learning
This workshop led by Mike Yates, senior designer at The Reinvention Lab at Teach for America, is an opportunity to learn how to build your own AI tools that solve real problems of today and the ones of tomorrow.

3) Tomorrow's Tools Today: AI Solutions for School Leaders
Hear from two school leaders from the National Association of Secondary School Principals about how they've successfully integrated AI to streamline operations and boost efficiency at their institutions.

4) Reimagining Learning by Building AI Support for Your Context
This hands-on session will feature "stations" managed by educators who have created open source AI tools that their schools now use, to help attendees build their own tools by "remixing" an existing app or starting from scratch.

5) AI in Big Sky: Co-Designing the AI Field Kit for Rural STEM
This panel will share the story behind the development of a mobile, makerspace-inspired "AI Field Kit" that was created with rural educators to fit afterschool settings.

6) From Classroom to Career: Transforming High School with Tech
Panelists from the Walton Family Foundation, LearnerStudio, Big Picture Learning, and Arizona State University's Center on Reinventing Public Education will explore how AI can help students chart their own learning journeys and connect classroom learning with purpose, identity, and the future of work.

7) Students + AI: Setting the Boundaries Before It's Too Late
Get the student perspective on AI from Arjun Sharda, the 14-year-old executive director of TLEEM, Texas's largest K-12 networking nonprofit with over 4,000 K-12 and college student members from 11 countries through 37 clubs.

8) Design Thinking with AI: Empowering People & Connection
A team from Val Verde Unified School District will lead this hands-on workshop that introduces a practical innovation framework combining design thinking with AI to improve workplace well-being and school culture.

9) Teaching Students to Make AI a Coach, Not Just a Shortcut
Elliott Hedman, principal AI user researcher at Robots & Pencils, will share strategies for turning AI into a student coach that builds skills, confidence, and self-efficacy.

10) Failing Forward: Moving from Tools to Transformation with AI
In this panel discussion, experts from Silicon Schools Fund, Ednovate, Westlake Charter School, and Arizona State University's Center on Reinventing Public Education will explore how grassroots AI efforts have the potential to evolve into a system-wide strategy that can reshape teaching and learning.

11) AI with Aloha: Stories from Hawai‘i's Classrooms
Gabriel Yanagihara, emerging technology teacher at ‘Iolani School in Hawaii, will share the early experimentation with AI that led to valuable lessons learned and the development of AI literacy programs in Hawai‘i.

12) Plus: Connect with an AI Mentor
SXSW EDU's mentorship sessions offer tailored advice and support in a one-on-one format. Attendees interested in the intersection of education and AI can:

• Talk to Marc Cicchino, director of innovation at Northern Valley Regional High School District, about AI in education, ed tech, and emerging technologies.
• Talk to Jennie Dougherty, AI lead and consultant at KIPP Public Schools Northern California, about a human-centered model for piloting and scaling AI-native software.
• Talk to Anjuli Ahooja, founder and CEO of ElevateEd and faculty member at Appleby College, about ed tech and AI integration to transform 21st-century pedagogy.
• Talk to Lexi Daly, learning innovation coordinator and reading teacher at Trinity Episcopal School in New Orleans, about AI integration in elementary grades and its impact on creativity, collaboration, communication, an critical thinking.
• Talk to Harold Hughes, founder and CEO of NFNTE Capital, about AI literacy and designing future-ready learning experiences.
• Talk to Jamie Nunez, senior manager of outreach and training at Common Sense Media, about the intersection of AI tools and critical thinking.
• Talk to Shannon Terry, founder and chief ideator at The Learning AI-gency, about reclaiming human intelligence as education's competitive advantage.
• Talk to Sophia Romee, head of the GenAI Studio at the College Board, about generative AI career pathways and organizational enablement.
• Talk to Toby Fischer, teacher preparation instructor at Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools, about AI for agency and personalization.
• Talk to Tarah Tesmer, senior community coach at SchoolAI, about strategic AI adoption in education.

View the full schedule of SXSW EDU sessions and events at SXSWEDU.com.