Laura Mina mentioned Maker-Spaces at the last planning meeting. It seemed that there were a few Fellows who had were interested and might have had a few questions. This short NPR piece is timely and includes some time around a BTV Maker Space.
"Maker spaces have become hotbeds of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. Now, governments, universities and big corporations are taking notice - and beginning to invest in them."
I personally believe for a number of reasons that every Vermont HS should have a Maker Space. First it is a place to encourage interdisciplinary work centered around elements of PBL. Second, it would allow students to connect with their communities to solve real problems with real solutions.
And finally and perhaps most importantly, because it would help move the idea of "Libraries" being places where students go to find Information...to being places to the idea that they are places where students go to Interact & Collaborate around Ideas.
Do they offer services and features that students don't already have
self-help graphics services
one-stop collaboratory for out-of-class assignments, writing, research, and group proje
social software
learning spaces should align with current pedagogy.
"environments designed for people" where the availability of food and drink, comfortable chairs, and furniture support a variety of active and social learning activities.3
"human-centered" design
modular clusters
multiple options for output
open, free, comfortable, inspiring, and practical
Wireless laptops give students the freedom to explore the commons or anywhere in the library—to group themselves as they see fit and not as decided for them.
Although a bit dated, this seems like a great example of the type of library we want to create. Combine this physical space with inspiring, practical Professional Development and we're going to cook!
By 2015, 1.3 billion people worldwide will be working remotely. That's almost 40% of the entire global workforce.
the power of physical place. A good workplace bonds employees to one another in ways that virtual communication cannot replicate.
An evolving need for collaborative and private space. The open-plan office promised increased collaboration, economies of space, and cost savings. What it's delivered is a dilemma: visually exciting offices with lots of buzz on the one hand, and on the other, a lack of privacy and quiet.
To function well, an office must provide a healthy mix of spaces — quiet, collaborative, and social.
one of the key roles of the new generation of modern executive is to create a more emotionally open, collaborative working environment, then we should be designing physical space that supports that mandate.
Generation whY in the workplace.
embracing self-customized office space which employees can furnish as they like.
Article that makes me question how schools and classrooms are physically designed. This is a direct reflection of how we do what we do.
Would you try to play tennis on a beach volleyball court? If we really are going to change the sport we need to change the venue too.
New report - Optimal Learning Spaces Optimal Learning Spaces Design Implications for Primary Schools.
Report is for primary schools, but same principles apply.
Laura and Lauren, thought you might be interested in this fairly extensive report.
Link to report on page is broken. Here is the report. Optimal Learning Spaces
Design Implications for Primary Schools
"...three design principles emerge to support application in practice: the role of naturalness, the opportunity for individualisation and appropriate levels of stimulation."
We are now about to challenge school design thinking with a current sustainability project in the making - the Marketplace, which seeks to combine social and learning space as one concept, breaking down any concept of ‘separate’ classrooms. The Marketplace is an active glass canopy positioned over old spaces in order to radically transform the heart of the original school from industrial-era design to agile spaces suited to community life, engaged learning and enhanced through mobile technologies.
Article based on The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the 5 Skills of Disruptive Innovators Focus on concluding three chapters, People, Processes, and Philosophies, which draw on and offers 15 takeaways for Principals and School-Leaders.
What You Can Do to Become Stronger Innovation Leaders in Your School:
1. Own as Principal the role of Innovator-in-Chief: You can't delegate innovation.
2. Make your practice of "active innovation" visible.
3. Create complementary teams in school leadership.
4 . Observe closely what other principals and schools are doing.
5. Arrange for employee swaps.
6. Ask "Why?"
7. Seek people who had invented something, held deep expertise in a particular knowledge area, and demonstrated a passion to change the world.
8. Remember that innovators want to work with and for other innovators.
9. Embed innovation as an explicit, consistent element of performance reviews.
10. Develop formal and informal processes to facilitate knowledge exchanges.
11. Network externally.
12. Practice Beta testing and Prototyping.
13. Build many small, diverse teams.
14. Communicate and reinforce that Innovation is everyone's job.
15. Make innovation an explicit core value of your school.
16. Give more time for innovation.
17. Create "a safe space for others to innovate.
18. Model your risk taking and your learning from failure.
The book is framed around the Five Core Skills of Innovators, a framework highly valuable for ourselves and our students: What are we doing to do more of and become better at
*Associating,
*Questioning,
*Observing,
*Networking,
*Experimenting.
"When you issue an open invitation and gather together a large group of self-nominated passionate stakeholders from a broad cross-section across a system or organization and ask them to vision your shared ideal future, anything can happen."