Learning Spaces Redesign Completed

Today Galtier Community School opened its doors to the community and Target to unveil the newly transformed Exploratorium space and the dramatically different classroom learning spaces, which are composed of shared spaces, interactive projectors, new seating and working arrangements, and glass walls.

It will be interesting to follow-up with the staff this year to see how not only the learning spaces but the instruction changes due to the open, shared classroom concept.

TEDxBurnsvilleED Only One Week Away

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With only a little over a week to go until my TED Talk, I'm rehearsing constantly in preparation for my time on the stage at the Minnesota History Center.

I'm looking forward to hearing the other speakers and am humbled to have been chosen for such an honor. I'm also excited to share some of the same concepts that have been driving the work in my district to empower students and to ensure that we are providing the access to devices and other technology that they need in order to be well-prepared for life and studies after leaving my school district.

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In my opinion, it's imperative that we as educators are providing the access to devices and support needed for how to use them for educational purposes in order to ensure that all of our students are real world ready and can navigate through life after high school and be successful, no matter where that path may lead them.

The Evolution of Technology & Visionary Thinkers

I'm wondering if science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke would ever have dreamt of the evolution of computers from giant room-engulfing, punch card monsters to the elegant wrist watch-sized model just released by Apple when he was interviewed by ABC News for the One Day A Computer Will Fit On A Desk video in 1974.

The video below may be restricted from playing here in the blog due to ABC News. If the video does not play, you can click on the link in the player below to watch the video on YouTube's website.

It's funny how most things that are technology-related have consistently shrunk over the years both in terms of expense to manufacture as well as the physical size of the device. On the other hand, automobiles range from the tiny, ultra compact Smart Cars to gargantuan SUVs, with relative size indicating prestige and quality for the larger size vehicles.

It's interesting how mankind has evolved technologically buy yet still equates luxury and status with excessively large vehicles which are not overly friendly for the environment. Maybe Apple should be working on a driverless car instead of Google. Combining Apple's classic sense of style with their advanced technological engineering could only result in an amazing set of electric-powered vehicles differentiated to meet both the performance and economic needs of consumers. Of course, it would probably be highly likely that each car model would require a different cable to charge, thus requiring multi-vehicle families to purchase additional Apple cables.

Connected Courses Blog Syndication

As part of participating in the Connected Courses cMOOC, my blog will be linked to the Connected Courses blog. Just having my blog listed in proximity of Howard Rheingold's blog definitely puts some pressure on keeping up with my blog on a regular basis. From being part of #BlogJune, I know that it is difficult to find the time to write a reflective post every day and have been trying to maintain writing at least one post a week as my goal.

I am looking forward to being part of Connected Courses though and learning from colleagues everywhere.

Funny how in the past, I would have been fortunate to share ideas with colleagues in my own school district on district professional development days that were scheduled only once per quarter during the school year, and now I can reach out to colleagues from across North America and from around the world by just turning my laptop or iPad on and writing a blog post or sending out a tweet on Twitter. It is truly amazing what a globally connected world we live in today!

Participating In Connected Courses

I am looking forward to participating in Connected Courses over the next several months.

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"Connected Courses is a collaborative network of faculty in higher education developing online, open courses that embody the principles of connected learning and the values of the open web."

The Connected Courses cMOOC is sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation and Digital Media & Learning Initiative Research Hub. 

New Office, New Approach To Utilizing Office Space - Introduction To Hoteling

Yesterday was my first visit to our new offices for the Personalized Learning department. Over the summer the elementary school that we are officed within underwent a complete redesign of all the classrooms and learning spaces to create more innovative use of shared spaces and classrooms. The amazing new multi-classroom shared spaces remind me of the open classroom concept from a few decades ago when there were no walls between classrooms. More about the classrooms later though.

As part of the school redesign, our office space was condensed from two classrooms to one in another part of the building that also underwent an architectural change over the summer. Our district facilities department began looking at more innovative uses of office space about a year ago, especially for offices with staff who aren't necessary working at a desk from 8:00 to 4:00 every day but who may be regularly out in schools working with teachers for part of the work week.

Our new office space contains a variety of seating options - two double-sided desks, cushy swivel chairs with a movable arm rest piece to put your laptop on with a movable whiteboard partition to allow for small group brainstorming sessions, and a flexible small group meeting area that doubles as a break area.

The idea of hoteling is that in an office, such as ours which has fourteen staff members, most of the staff are actually have very mobile job duties and spend a great deal of time working in schools with principals and teachers on integrating technology and revamping library spaces and services. The idea of hoteling is that less desks and chairs are needed, and ultimately less office space and furniture are required, if people are not assigned to desks but rather can be more flexible about where they sit and work while they are in the office. The concept of hoteling then relies on being flexible and temporarily occupying spaces while in the office.

A few years ago I did a presentation at ISTE about how schools could learn from companies like General Mills and the University of Minnesota who have put hoteling into practice for years now to create flexible office space designed around team and project needs versus quiet work spaces for intense work for the former and more creative, collaborative use of classroom learning environments and hallway spaces for the later to create dynamic technology-enriched classrooms and learning stations that allow all students and groups to share their work with the class without need for transition time or movement through connected table pods that can access the room projection and audio system as well as having movable whiteboard space for brainstorming group work.

Storage space is at a premium in the hoteling model with shared storage cabinets for office supplies and shared technology equipment and a personal portable storage cabinet for each of us that can be personalized with photos and magnets and that can slide under the desk countertop while we are working in the office and that can be pulled off to the side when we leave to free up the desk space for the next person when they arrive at the office.

We have definitely entered a new frontier in terms of being more mobile, agile, and living in less personalized spaces than in the past when we had assigned desks covered with family photos and desk toys that gave some impression of our personalities and interests. I am excited though about starting out the year with the knowledge that I don't have an assigned space and can be more flexible about moving around as needed according to who I am collaborating with on projects while in the office.

Google Slides App For iOS

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Google continues to make the Google Apps For Education suite more iPad friendly as the Google Slides app for iOS debuted to the masses today! Slides along with Google Drive, Sheets, and Docs have enabled iPad users to tap into the collaborative power of Google apps like never before on iPads.

Google Slides has also added new features and options that were not available previously when accessing Google Slides via the Chrome iOS browser. Users can now create presentations on the iPad rather than being limited to just viewing them as well as continuing to work on presentations offline and having the new content sync back up once connected to wifi again.

These changes make using Google Slides more friendly than ever for schools and districts going 1:1 with iPads.