I've cast my votes already for the panels I'd like to see at SXSW. I've got a vested interest, of course, as I'll be headed to Austin in March to cover the event. Even if you're not sure you'll be at SXSW this year, you can head over to the 2011 Panel Picker and give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down recommendation for the proposed panels. This crowdsourcing will be weighted about 30% towards a panel's acceptance.

There are over 2300 proposals to go through, of which 61 are tagged "education."

Here are the ones that I voted for:

How to Create an Open Access Journal Organizer: Philip Jeffrey, University of British Columbia

Building Open Platforms for Learning K-12 Core Content Organizer: Ed Jones, OpenHistoryProject.org

Innovating and Developing with Libraries, Archives, and Museums Organizer: Jon Voss, LookBackMaps

Building School 2.0: Creating the Schools We Need Organizer: Chris Lehmann, Science Leadership Academy

The Emerging Role of Social Media in the Classroom Organizer: Richard Byrne, Free Technology for Teacher

Education in the 21st Century Organizer: Aparna Vashisht, Parentella

Here's the "why" I voted:

I chose the first three panels, in part, because they address what I think will be one of the most important challenges to come vis-a-vis education: open access, open platforms, and opencourseware. How can we rethink the way in which course content is "owned" and shared?

The last three were my choices because of my respect for the panelists: Chris Lehmann, Richard Byrne, and Shelley Blake-Plock. I feel like a broken record saying this sometimes, but I think the tech industry could pay better attention to what educators want, need, and are actually doing in the classroom to move education forward. And so listening to these 3 guys at SXSW would be great, I think.

Are there other panels I overlooked? What's got your vote?