Midwest AV Summit

Matthew Clay : Active Learning Spaces

partners across campus for IT/AV: CETL
What is the most important key for creating active learning spaces (ALS).

Mathew shared his work with CETL and his understanding of the importance of faculty being brought to the table. Faculty as equal stakeholder in the process.

In a conversation with him after the presentation, he agreed that faculty must be the leading force in in generating ideas what new technology and how to implement technology in the classroom. He agreed that at the present IT/AV staff is the leading force and this is a corrupt statuquo

key partnerships:
faculty and academic affairs, students, facilities, architects, engineers, contractors, furniture vendors, IT (networking, support instructional design)

challanges: ITS mindset (conservative), Administration must be on board (money), Funding.

MnSCU is not Google friendly. 60% of the staff is not doing the same tasks as 3 years ago.

Open about challenges, sharing more with faculty. Nice to hear this, but the communication must be much larger, to the point when faculty are equal partners in a relationship, which is not far from equal decision making. 

If faculty is not considered a REAL stakeholder (versus intimated body in a meeting which is controlled by IT people), the entire technology use goes down the drain. Faculty is much stronger relationship with students then IT is with students. The presentation put weight on IT staff and its connection with students’ needs. It is questionable how IT staff can make stronger connection then faculty, who are in a daily contact with students.
The issue is how to assist faculty to catch up with the technology, not how IT staff to rival faculty in their connection with students. What faculty lacks in understanding of technology cannot be replaced by IT staff increasing interaction with students, but rather assisting faculty with coming to terms with technology.

maintaining innovation: fail fast and fail forward; keep up to date with technology (blank statement); always look for new furniture; focus on space design instead of just A/V; Challenge yourself with new ideas; always learn from your mistakes; always get feedback from students and faculty (again, the PERIPHERAL role of faculty. Is feedback all expected from faculty? It faculty and IT staff must be equal partners at the decision table. not faculty being consulted at decision made by IT staff)

Google Glass mentioned, Pebble watches. supposedly to understand students habits. Big data used to profiling students is very fashionable, but is it the egg in the basket?

they have 3d printer, Inoculus. Makerspace mentioned

examples how to use 3d printing for education (LRS archive collections, MN digital library).

the presenter kept asking if there are questions. it makes me wonder how far back (pedagogically or androgogically) IT staff must be to NOT consider backchanneling. Social media is not a novelty and harvesting opinions and questions using social media should not be neglected

digital classroom breakdown session

Break down session: Digital Classroom

technical, very IT. I am not versed enough to draw impression on how it projects over real faculty work. HDMI cables.
relating to the previous presentation: I really appreciate the IT / AV staff handling all this information, which is complex and important; but during my 15 years tenure at SCSU I learned to be suspicious of when the complexity and the importance of the techy matter starts asserting itself as leading when the pedagogy in the classroom is determined.

HD flow and other hardware and software solutions

VLAN 3. lecture capture.

BYOD support in the classroom: about half of the room raised their hands.