The No-Go Podium

Let's get right to it: most designs for classroom technology are based on a 20-year old paradigm of furniture, cables and pipes (and lots of equipment). While continuing to
replicate these dinosaurs may serve to ensure job security (for now), this
model requires heavy infrastructure that
adds cost and locks the room into a rigid floorplan that does not support
progressive teaching and learning practice.

This week, Joe Schuch delivers Part Three in our "Open Proposal for Innovation Series" in which we challenge the AV-1 community for outside-the-box ideas to solve inside-the-classroom challenges and obstacles. It is our wish to encourage you to recognize that it is up to YOU, dear reader, to shatter assumptions widely viewed as unchangeable. You can do this. In countless ways you have surely done so already, else why would you be reading AV-1? (See what we did there?)

Tags: Joe, Schuch, classroom, conduit, design, infrastructure, lecternnosaurus, podium, rex

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Permalink Reply by Ed Jones on May 11, 2010 at 6:49am

The physical answer, of course, is the LG CellPhone Projector and its ilk.

The more systems-sensitive answer has to do with removing kids from the direction of a single (possibly not even mediocre) teacher and enabling them to tap in to the very best of explainers and guides. Or, more likely, to tap into learning experiences which fit them more personally.

This month I'm looking in depth at Ohio's new Credit Flexibility Plan. It's mandated that all districts, by this fall, come up with a tailored plan to provide flexible options to students.

What would you do if a student came to you, waving their ODE manual, and asked to design their own semester's experience for credit? How should districts and teachers respond? Are tech systems ready? Or necessary?