Students at Nibley Park Elementary School in Salt Lake City, UT, work in a flexible environment with access to online resources and small group learning spaces | Photo by Scott Zimmerman |
Among the greatest challenges that school administrators, post-secondary facility planners, and architects face today is how to design, build, and retrofit educational facilities to enhance learning for today’s tech-savvy students. After all, how many of the people in charge of the design and construction of today’s educational facilities grew up with laptops and the Internet as an everyday part of their lives? Today’s youth have mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, and iPods, to name just a few standard gadgets. Their leisure time includes state-of-the-art video games, blogs, Facebook pages, text messages, and e-mail.
Small groups, big ideas
Given all of these extraordinary differences in the technological world today’s young people are experiencing, educational leaders, architects, and facilities planners must design and construct educational facilities that have the flexibility to support students’ technological needs as well as encourage collaborative learning in small groups. The technology students use daily already supports such collaborative learning; now educational facilities must do the same. Gone are the days of uninspiring, vanilla classrooms—if we expect to get great results from students, we must provide them with the tools and learning environments they need.
Technology Teaching Tools
As architects and engineers continue to work closely with educational leaders to design, build, and retrofit buildings that support the changing needs of today’s students, it is a valuable exercise to look at the types of classroom technology educators are using. Here are some examples of technology teaching tools.
Tripod for Teachers. This Web site hosting service from Lycos Inc. provides templates and user-friendly Web site building tools. Educators can use the Tripod site to post assignments, provide links to online sources, host class videos (such as lecture videos for post-secondary students), blogs with parents, and much more—all in a secure online environment. The basic service is free and upgrades are available for a fee. Go to www.tripod.lycos.com.
HippoCampus. This free, interactive Web site provides comprehensive high school, advanced placement, and college coursework content for students who need additional help with assignments. The site provides educators with tools to customize content for their students. HippoCampus is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Go to www.hippocampus.org.
Planetary Collaborations. Educators can tap into a free online tool called Polycom Collaborations Around the Planet that provides access to a global social
network and directory that helps them connect with their peers who are using instructional technology in the classroom. Participating educators can collaboratively build curriculum and create projects using video conferencing technology. Go to www.polycom.com/education/PCATP.
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One of the most exciting and fastest growing models in the educational field today involves students learning in small groups—working collaboratively on projects, with the teacher as a facilitator, rather than a lecturer in the front of a typical classroom. This replicates the modern technologically equipped workplace, and will ultimately create more productive and interested employees.
Today’s tech-savvy students need a more personalized and stimulating environment to stay inspired by the learning process, and small learning communities are ideal for keeping them engaged. Plus, research shows that smaller schools reap better results in the educational process overall. If local economics don’t allow for smaller schools, then larger schools should be broken down into smaller groups of students to allow for relationship-building and modern learning strategies that include interactive computer labs, smart books, and Web-based lesson plans.
Planning for collaboration
Also important to enhancing the learning environment is providing collaboration spaces adjacent to the classroom spaces—and these, of course, must also be planned with technology in mind. It is critical, for example, to create a high level of transparency between the classroom and collaboration areas, allowing instructors to visually control student groups in all learning areas. Taking this concept further, every space in an educational facility should be a part of the learning environment, which necessitates wireless computer access throughout, as well as the ability to project visual media, and provisions for audio reinforcement in spaces where groups larger than a dozen or so students can gather to learn.
Jeanne Jackson, AIA, LEED AP, is a partner with VCBO Architecture in Salt Lake City, UT. Reach her at jjackson@vcbo.com.
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