Making a Digital Window Wall from TVs — from theawesomer.com
Drew Builds Stuff has an office in the basement of his parents’ house. Because of its subterranean location, it doesn’t get much light. To brighten things up, he built a window wall out of three 75? 4K TVs, resulting in a 12-foot diagonal image. Since he can load up any video footage, he can pretend to be anywhere on Earth.
From DSC:
Perhaps some ideas here for learning spaces!
Best Webcams for Teachers and Students — from techlearning.com by Luke Edwards
Get the best webcams for teachers and students to help with hybrid learning and more
Best Wireless Keyboard and Mouse for Teachers 2022 — from techlearning.com by Luke Edwards
The best wireless keyboard and mouse for teachers keep you connected to devices while staying mobile
Rethinking Learning Spaces: 4 Strategies for Student-Centered Learning — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
The Brigantine Public School district has redesigned its learning spaces and rethought how and where learning takes place. Superintendent Glenn Robbins shares how others districts can do the same and prioritize student-centered learning in the process.
Excerpt:
Robbins shares how other educators can rethink their learning spaces and encourage student voice and choice in the process.
Innova: A Revolution in Education? — from gettingsmart.com by Chris Terrill
Key Points
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
The initial school start-up was funded by Carlos Rodriguez Pastor, a Peruvian businessman. He saw an opportunity to provide high-quality schools in areas where the government struggled to supply essential education services (Peru and Colombia consistently rank near the bottom on the global education survey). He enlisted the famed US design firm IDEO to develop a comprehensive program that would eventually be utilized in multiple countries.
From DSC:
Stop the presses. I love that idea of using IDEO to be involved here. It seems like that is a positive step towards implementing Design Thinking within our learning ecosystems.
In the original model, the founders designed a rigorous, engaging, personalized curriculum, with a heavy emphasis on Project-Based Learning. I wanted to know if and how that is actualized, and how that is enacted across multiple countries in schools thousands of miles apart.
Finally, IDEO’s work included a design for the physical structure of schools to be quickly and economically replicated at each location; how was that design working? The vision for Innova may be one of the most ambitious educational undertakings today. What lessons can I, as an individual educational leader, and we, as a global education community, learn from their work?
The Maker Space and the Gaming Lab demonstrate clearly how digital competency is a central element of their curriculum. I saw highly engaging lessons that were perfectly synced with classroom projects, pursuing a bigger goal of equipping Colombian students to fill the digital labor gap.
4 Ways Classroom Design Impacts Executive Functioning — from edutopia.org by Andrew Ayers and Amelia Glauber
Effective classroom design can help elementary students develop skills like organization and task initiation.Excerpt:
Executive functions are process skills that allow us to successfully complete tasks. In any given classroom, there will be a wide range of students with a variety of executive functioning skill levels. These skills include working memory, task initiation, organization, metacognition, inhibition, planning and prioritizing, time management, emotional control, sustained attention, flexibility, and goal-directed persistence.
Also relevant/see:
Designing Classrooms Fit for Early Learners — from edsurge.com by Ozzie Tapia
With deliberate design, learning environments can promote independence, discovery and creativity for early learners.
Excerpt:
Working closely with districts has helped us hone these five strategies, which emphasize how the facility itself can play an active role in the teaching dynamic. When applied effectively, a facility—and the learning spaces inside and around it—becomes a tool for discovery and creative play, which is essential for learners at these early stages of development.
From DSC:
Along the lines of PreK-12th grade learning spaces, I’d like to see more innovations in regards to providing places within classrooms (or within a given facility at least) where students can go who want to/need to block out the cacophony of sites and sounds that may be occurring — in order to help them focus.
From DSC:
I’m very proud of our sister Sue Ellen — who worked hard to bring this idea/vision/exhibit to reality.
Kalamazoo Valley Museum explores media & its messages — from woodtv.com by Jessica Jurczak
Excerpt:
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – We are constantly on the lookout for fun ideas that also involve learning and one of our go-to spots is the Kalamazoo Valley Museum! There’s a big exhibition there now called “Wonder Media: Ask the Questions!” As we all know, we’re bombarded everyday with messages from all types of media: TV, movies, social media and this exhibit encourages us to stop and evaluate some of those messages. The Kalamazoo Valley Museum also has a planetarium, and vast science and history galleries and today, we’re taking you inside!
The New Library at Magdalene College by Niall McLaughlin Architects wins 2022 Stirling Prize — from dezeen.com by Lizzie Crook
Lessons From Higher Education To Guide Office Design — from allwork.space
The design successes and struggles of colleges and universities provide useful insight for organizations planning space for hybrid and coworking offices.
Amazon ups its cloud training investments — from workshift.opencampusmedia.org by Byelyse Ashburn
Amazon Web Services just launched a new skills center near D.C. and is expanding both its in-person and online training programs for cloud careers.
Excerpt:
The big idea: The skills center is just one part of AWS’ plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars providing free training in cloud computing to 29 million people globally by 2025. In the past year, the company has dramatically increased its free cloud skills offerings, adding AWS Skill Builder, an online library of 500-plus self-paced courses. It’s also twice expanded re/Start, its cohort-based training program for workers who are unemployed or underemployed.
Thus far, the company has helped more than 13 million people gain cloud skills for free through its various offerings—seven million more than this time last year.
DSC: What?!?! How might this new type of “parallel reality” impact smart classrooms, conference rooms, and board rooms? And/or our living rooms? Will it help deliver more personalized learning experiences within a classroom?
There’s “virtual reality”, “augmented reality”, and “mixed reality” now added to the eXtended Reality #XR family, we have: “parallel reality”
– just consider how we might differentiate instruction with such technology! https://t.co/fQ17qsCkX4
— Immersive Learning Research Network – #iLRN (@immersiveLRN) October 11, 2022
2022 Students and Technology Report: Rebalancing the Student Experience — from library.educause.edu by Jenay Robert
Excerpt:
In this report, we describe the findings of the survey in four key areas:
Key Findings
8 Ways to Use QR Codes in Higher Education Classrooms — from er.educause.edu by Tolulope (Tolu) Noah
Excerpt:
QR codes open up a world of possibility in the higher education setting. They provide a quick and easy way for students to access instructional materials, and they complement the design of more interactive and engaging learning experiences.
From DSC:
QR codes can bridge the physical world with the digital world — which is something about to take an exponential leap as more AR and MR-based hardware and software solutions hit the marketplace in the near future.
