Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Merging Learning Space with Web 2.0

Today, when designing new learning spaces perhaps we should reflect on how these environments can be enhanced with Web 2.0 technologies. While, some of these technologies may have no immediate effect on the spaces we create, perhaps when we think about how students utilize rich media in their social lives, and academic lives, we can maximize their learning (and social) environment. One area we can make an immediate impact is with furniture.


Steelcase has come up with the concept called Media:Scape. The concept brings students around a table with comfortable seating, but more importantly it provides a mechanism for each student to share their computer "image" by way of an innovative "puck." You simply click on the puck, and your computer is displayed on the main monitor. This Media:Scape provides the opportunity for students to share and collaborative. This same system is being used at Drexel University in the Hagerty Library atrium. As we design spaces to promote collaboration, simply changing the furniture can help to enhance the experience for the students.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another technology that many campuses are using to support team collaboration in informal learning spaces is TeamSpot. This product got its start in a research project at Stanford, but is now offered by a spinout company (Tidebreak.) Media:Scape makes use of a hardware switch in the table and lets people show their laptop screen. TeamSpot is something different that allows people to actually send content (files and websites) between computers and control the main display with their own keyboard and mouse -- all over the network. Has anyone tried both of these and compared them?

Anonymous said...

Jim, as an instructional designer I am very impressed on how not just technology is being used to transform learning but how furniture plays a big role as well. I have seen a software program that can provide the same collaborative features such as Media.Scape but this is the first time seeing a hardware device that can link multiple laptops for screen sharing.

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