Conversations about Emerging Learning Environments

The following graph from Julie Evans indicates that cell phone use among kindergarten through second graders is at a whopping 40 percent!

Steve Fitzgerald from the Office of Classroom Management points out that this is the future of mobile learning and that we at the University of Minnesota better be ready for it. Fitzgerald challenges us to think about mobile learning as part and parcel of classroom design because, he argues, person-based (mobile) computing is replacing infrastructure-based computing (think computer labs). “There’s a fundamental difference between the rooms that some people on campus would like us to build—a computer lab type of place that has a lot of computing infrastructure in the room—and the direction we’re trying to go,� which is a classroom that accommodates “whatever computing device walks in the door.�

Watch a short clip of Steve Fitzgerald. (Video will open in a new browser window or tab.)

Posted by Lauren Marsh at 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How many faculty know about the planning, designing, and support that goes on “behind the curtain" to enable us to walk confidently into a classroom and teach? Who is supporting us now and anticipating future trends to keep us on the cutting edge of the physical/technological space and teaching/learning intersect? Meet the wizards from the Office of Classroom Management (OCM): Steve Fitzgerald, Director; Jeremy Todd, Planning; and John Knowles, Instructional Technology Coordinator. The Digital Media Center-Office of Information Technology Faculty Fellows had an opportunity to meet with these leaders to learn more about the current active learning classroom initiative as well as hear ideas that are being considered for future learning-space innovations.

Continue reading "The “UM Wizards of OCM" and the Active Learning Classroom Initiative" »

Posted by Catherine Solheim PhD at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)