Podcasts and learning spaces

In this 43-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Homero Lopez, Richard Marmon, and Roger Yohe in a session entitled Designing Learning Spaces that Promote Engagement. They explain how Estrella Mountain Community College  undertook a major project to promote engagement and maximize learning opportunities through innovative learning spaces. The project provided faculty and learners with an opportunity to experiment with radical flexibility in space, furnishings, and technology.

In this 46-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Gerald Hinkle, Timothy O'Rourke, and Sheri Stahler in a session entitled From Labs to Collaborative Spaces: Development of Temple University's TECH Center. They discuss the TECH Center, a 24-hour center  featuring 640-plus student workstations, multimedia breakout rooms, specialized labs, extensive wireless lounge space, a help desk, faculty resources, and a cybercafé.

In this 56-minute recording from the 2007 EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative Annual Meeting, we'll hear from William Dittoe, Deborah Bickford, and David Wright in a session entitled Creating New Spaces for Learning in Community. Using examples from the University of Dayton, they will share how spaces can be created to foster learning in community.

In this 40-minute recording from the 2006 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, we'll hear from Surajit Bose, Allen Chen, & Richard Holeton in a session entitled GroupSpaces for Laptop Collaboration: From Research Labs to Informal Learning Spaces. They'll share how Stanford University's GroupSpace/TeamSpot project is allowing students to collaborate without leaving their laptops at home.

With the ELI 2007 Annual Meeting fast approaching, I interviewed the University of Dayton's Deborah Bickford and David Wright on the ideas behind their upcoming featured session, "Creating New Spaces for Learning in Community." They will conduct their session on Tuesday, January 23, from 10:00-11:00 AM, along with fellow presenter Bill Dittoe of Educational Facilities Consultants.

My discussion with Bickford and Wright focused on the factors that motivated the University of Dayton to focus on learning spaces as a key component of its academic planning and development. They also reviewed the challenges the university encountered in effectively engaging the institutional community in learning space design, as well as the approaches the university took to overcome them. Finally, Bickford and Wright talked about options institutions might consider in assessing the impact of learning spaces on learning.

In this 16 minute recording, we'll hear from Rachael Edwards, Learning Grid Manager at the University of Warwick. Listen in as she shares a bit about their innovative library and learning space.

See also:

the University of Warwick's Learning Grid
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/grid/

Society of College, National and University Libraries
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/

Higher Education Academy
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/

Learning Spaces Resources
http://www.educause.edu/Browse/645?PARENT_ID=696

JISC: Designing spaces for effective learning
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/eli_learningspaces.html

In my second interview with Lori Gee and Terry Hajduk,  we discussed participant questions related to their ELI '05 Fall Focus Session presentation, The Importance of Informal Spaces for Learning, Collaboration, and Socialization. While our first conversation focused on issues of institutional culture, this interview addresses the design process for informal learning spaces. Participants asked Gee and Hajduk to address:

• How widely Gee and Hajduk's views on informal space design are shared across the architect / designer community
• The extent to which architects and designers may be approaching the design process based on "boilerplates from the past"
• The weaknesses of applying business space design models to learning environments, and
• Their starting points for designing a library today, based on contemporary views of informal spaces.

If you would like to view their original presentation in addition to listening to the attached MP3 file, you can access it via the focus session proceedings.

The attached MP3 file contains the audio from the general session presentation conducted by Lori Gee and Terry Hajduk at the ELI ’05 Fall Focus Session – Design of Informal Learning Spaces. In their presentation, Gee and Hajduk highlighted the following principles as central to the design of effective informal learning spaces:

• The entire campus is a learning environment that provides opportunities for further learning;
• Informal spaces for learning, collaboration, and socialization are critical components of both scheduled and unscheduled campus spaces; and
• Space drives behaviors and behaviors need to change for our society to realize its learning goals.

Gee and Hajduk explored these principles across a range of institutional examples. To view those examples while listening to the file, you can download a PDF file of their presentation from the focus session proceedings.

 The attached MP3 file contains the audio from the general session presentation conducted by Nancy Chism at the ELI ’05 Fall Focus Session. In her presentation, Chism sought to set the context for the design of informal learning spaces in terms of their relation to the institution’s academic mission. She discussed:

• Establishing a shared understanding of what might fall under the heading of "informal learning spaces"
• Thinking about what constitutes the "instituitonal mission" and its various dimensions
• Identifying how institutional mission and space intersect
• Examining different spaces and determining what they say about learning (built pedagogy), and
• Identifying informal learning space issues about which we need a greater understanding.

If you would like to view her PowerPoint slides while listening to the presentation, you can access them through the focus session proceedings. A PDF file with the text from her remarks is also available as part of the proceedings.

 

The attached MP3 file contains the full audio from the general session presentation conducted by Malcolm Brown and Phil Long at the ELI '05 Fall Focus Session - Design of Informal Learning Spaces. In the presentation, Brown and Long identify three trends as significantly influencing the present and future of informal learning space design:

• Intentional support for social learning strategies, informed by principles
• A return to human-centered design, and
• Support for diverse, personally-owned devices to enrich academic learning.

You can review the presentation slides while listening to Brown and Long’s session by downloading their PowerPoint file from the focus session proceedings.