Authored by

Duncan Peberdy

Learning Spaces Consultant at

Something Old, Something New Something BYOD, Something to View

Wedding Learning Spaces to Learning

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Something Old

Designing for Digital Learning

Universities and colleges will not be able to evolve their strategies for digital learning until the

spaces where digital learning can truly excel are built as, or transformed into, engaging spaces where

students can be engaged with active learning pedagogies enabled by wireless collaborative

technologies.

What makes a good learning space?

The following drawing depicts a 2018 suggestion for transforming the previous rows and columns of

individual desks into a space where active learning could flourish. The brief included details that the

students would be using wireless technology so that visual information could be shared. It was

assumed that the teams of six students at each table would be able to use wall-mounted screens – in

some instances quite a way from their tables, to facilitate this.

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Does this make a good active learning space?

Great for discussion and social interaction, but not for being engaged by active learning? What

would become the most likely usage? Two groups of three students at each table sharing content on

a single laptop screen? Disengaged students not turning up to subsequent sessions?

Room Capacity

One of the design criteria for this space – which possibly had more influence than supporting the

effectiveness of active learning – was for the capacity of the room to accommodate 96 students. In

the formation with round tables, when the room is operating at full capacity the ability for the

tutor(s) to circulate through the space supporting students is removed.

A design with individual technology tables – similar to the TeamMate WorksZone tables used with

the Sticky Campus Roadshow – did not work for a couple of reasons. They didn’t achieve the desired

room occupancy levels, sight lines throughout the room were poor, circulation space was not

sufficient.

So, what if technology tables that shared a housing for team screens were developed? Where the

screens could be lowered when sightlines across the space, or non-technology use of the space, was

more appropriate.

What would that do to both

room capacity and the

circulation space in the

room?

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In my revised scenario, all 96 students can be accommodated, each group of six students has its own

team display, and the circulation space for active learning is good. Now that each team has its own

screen, the content from these group-work sessions can quickly be selected, shown to the whole

class or developed by the academic expert as a real-life digital critique that can be shared in real

time to the whole class.

Learning Space Evaluation

As new spaces such as this are developed, research must gather and analyse data to determine the

pedagogical effectiveness and impact on learning outcomes that new spaces with evolving furniture

and designs can help flourish. Such research, that will also have technological aspects taken into

account, would better inform future designs that might help determine reusable characteristics that

the sector can benefit from.

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Something New

Promoting Inclusivity and Accessibility

How can we bring the same student-engagement transformations supporting BYOD technology to

large cohort spaces? If we do what we’ve always done, then little will change, so instead of opening

a CAD file to start a lecture theatre design, what if we start instead with the student’s perspective

and work backwards?

Traditional lecture spaces only work for a small number of highly academic students who possess

well-developed skills around reading, writing and notetaking and who are didactically treated by

their professors as a large group of individuals. The reality for most large cohorts is that there will a

diverse range of abilities, many will not have English as their first language, and other differences,

such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism, etc., which make traditional didactic lecturing an obsolete and

ineffective pedagogy.

The new Collaborative Wave from Ferco Seating changes all that. Students are arranged in clusters

of 5, with enough desk space to use their own technology, write notes, etc. Each student has their

own seat; they can turn to face anywhere in the room, they are close enough to collaborate

effectively as a group, but importantly for many, they retain their personal space, which bench

seating systems don’t provide. The individual upholstered seat is also great for their posture. For

the differing needs of each faculty, the Collaborative Wave can be customised with the colours of

their choice and can have a wide range of power and technology options incorporated into it.

The first Collaborative Wave rooms are currently under construction for one of the UK’s leading

business schools. Watch this space for more details, or watch this short animation for information

about the Collaborative Wave.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHYVRIFiJls&feature=youtu.be

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This new Collaborative Wave not only looks great, but with right wireless technology it enables

students to have the tutor’s content replicated onto their own devices, where they can build

personalised learning with the making and saving of their own notes, and with access to any assistive

technology that supports them in their studies. The information from their own devices can also be

shared with the whole class too.

With the right pedagogies that present students with content then enables group interactions in the

same space whilst supported by technology with intuitive BYOD connectivity, students will want to

come into class for the learning experience alone. A learning session where they can drive forward

the skills around critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaboration, etc., that are in

demand from knowledge-based employers. The fact that the session might be available later

through the learning capture system will not provide an adequate substitution that warrants missing

a class experience like this for.

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Something BYOD

providing Learning Analytics too

Here’s our technology selection; now get on with it!

Unfortunately, this is still the reality facing many students, and should belong to an era when

network security was more important than student engagement; an era when IT applications

available were not selected because of their value to advancing learning and teaching, but because

they were acceptable to those providing the network services and the network-connected

computing devices that universities provided.

Today’s students are encouraged and supported to bring their own technology, connecting

anywhere on campus and in many cases on the buses and trains going to and from campus. So,

what if we had the notion to start with technology provision from the perspective of the student and

work backwards? There has to be an argument – possibly one that need some deeper research –

that if IT provision is determined on the basis of supporting students, then students will use it more

and more effectively, which will in turn give institutions greater potential for collating learning

analytics with added value attributable to them. Is that a fair and valid assumption to make?

In the Chapter, “The Technology Myth,” that can be found in my last book – Creating the Digital

Campus – and available at this link: http://www.thestickycampus.com/alt.htm we consider the

attributes of learning technology that is more likely to be fully engaging for all students. In short,

such technology needs to be all of these things: Intuitive cognitively, Engaging, Scalable, Truly

Collaborative, Secure, Intuitively connects from any device.

During the former Digital Classroom and current Sticky Campus Roadshows, we have used the VIA

technology from Kramer Electronics. Other technology choices are, of course, available, and it

won’t satisfy every pedagogic scenario, but what academic visitors to these roadshows particularly

like, is the fact that they can quickly envisage the advantages of engagements with their students

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that VIA supports, and most importantly, that they will themselves be able to use the technology to

maximum effect without the necessity for tortuous training. Student feedback from the Jisc Digital

Tracker points to high frequencies of technology being provided, but not used because faculty

members are not confident in its usage. It would be very interesting to discover if, in the instances

covered by the Digital Tracker, the technology not being used was selected by technology people

because of advanced technical considerations, which faculty then find too difficult to cope with.

Technically superior solutions – in any field – don’t always provide the best user experiences, nor

generate the higher levels of usage.

To technically manage multiple Kramer VIA units across the network, so that updates to firmware

can be applied in a timely fashion, universities use the VIA Site Management Software (VSM). This

software, installed on a server, not only manages the hardware, but it can also record usage levels as

students connect their BYOD devices via the Kramer VIA App. This information, which can be

anonymised or directly linked to individual students, could provide very powerful engagement and

learning analytics. Levels of connection could also be used by IS and Estates to help determine

where facilities are underused or where demand exceeds availability. If students authenticate using

their university ID, it would also be possible to run reports that highlight students not engaging with

the technology, or if they only engage as an individual rather than as part of a group.

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Something to View

Bringing Whole Class Active Learning to Life

EdTech is constantly embracing new software, hardware and

ideas that will reinvigorate curriculum design and better suit the

learning needs of today’s students. There is a danger that in the

ubiquity of mobile wireless devices with instant connectivity to

screens in the room and people across the globe, that visualisers are

overlooked by this influx of and concentration on mobile digital

resources.

Visualisers are part of an exciting digital toolkit that, when

properly used, will engage and support the widest range of students who require a more inclusive

and accessible environment in order to thrive in their studies.

Easy-to-use Epson visualisers offer educators an opportunity to transform learning and teaching by

enabling their students to visualise almost anything and everything; for example, a process that

needs real-time explanation and recording, or immediate feedback as a whole-class critique.

This transformation, that improves teaching, cannot be achieved by simply replacing existing

practices with digital adaptations; it requires an alternative approach to whole class participation

that makes teaching inclusive and engaging for the broadest range of students.

The Sticky Campus Roadshow incorporates an Epson ELPDC21 Visualiser to enhance student

learning:

• Increases levels of proactive engagement with their studies that should be innovative,

challenging and inspiring.

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• Promotes personalised learning. When used in conjunction with Kramer VIA technology,

students can create their own personalised learning notes on objects and processes being

shown from the Epson visualiser to the whole class.

• Is a great example of learning technology that positively contributes to creating the best

learning spaces that share visual information and ignite a passion for life-long

learning.

Prompted by the Sticky Campus Roadshow, I’ve recently put together a small paper on using

visualisers, which can be accessed from the following link:

http://www.thestickycampus.com/index_htm_files/RoadshowTechnology_EpsonVisualiser_ELPDC2

1.pdf

Contact Duncan Peberdy:

Duncan Peberdy is an independent consultant specialising in the development of inclusive and accessible active learning spaces that engage all students in the achievement of their educational outcomes and personal development.

Duncan’s Sticky Campus Roadshow, www.thestickycampus.com in partnership with Jisc, evangelises campus-wide solutions for BYOD active learning, and challenges organisations to involve all stakeholders in their own pedagogical developments so that better-informed decisions about the organisation’s requirements for their own active learning facilities can be determined.

Duncan works with academics, technology manufacturers, and architects to help ensure that technology and space designs enrich these new spaces, rather than restricting them.

e: duncan@droitwich.net m: +44 (0)7887 628567 w: www.droitwich.net