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In late 2015 I had the opportunity to sit down and design a classroom environment suited to Computer Science students. After surveying my students and getting lots of ideas (including one which resembled a living-room with C shaped sofa – tempting, I’ll admit) for what they consider would be their optimal learning environment I let the ideas stew while over in London in January for the Apple Leadership event and BETT 2016.
My interest in flexible learning environments roll way back to my time at Inverurie Academy when I worked in an open plan floor of six classrooms. I posted my first #ThisIsMyClassroom blog in May 2011 as a way of recording the changes to my classroom environment. Even at this time I was asking students about how they would like their learning environments to be arranged and remember the 3D walkthrough videos created by a great S3 class. It was truly excellent work that culminated in a video conference with Anna Rossvoll, who was at that time creating her own flexible learning environment at Hill of Banchory school in Aberdeenshire. I’ll try and find these videos and upload some of them.
Since the launch of the Raspberry Pi Computer Science teachers have had the ever-increasing opportunity to embed low-cost working models in their classrooms. While at Robert Gordon’s College I set up a separate Raspberry Pi lab (imaginatively titled PiLab) but when we moved to new classrooms in 2015 integrated the Raspberry Pis into my Computing classroom and made them part of the curriculum rather than an extra-curricular club.
I also used my experience from attending the PiCademy in Cambridge to investigate how Raspberry Pi might be used to allow students to access previously static areas of the classroom environment and bring them to life.
Perhaps the final piece of the inspiration puzzle came when I visited OnHouse Milano during last session. While primarily a showcase design home I had a great discussion with their programmers on how they use themes and scenarios to integrate a number of systems. This gave me the idea of creating Python API wrappers that allow the students to move easily access a number of hackable devices in the same program. These libraries could then easily be imported into a student’s programming environment and let them, for example, take the colour sensed by a Raspberry Pi camera and mimic it in the Phillips Hue lighting system.
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I still want to keep the same classroom environment ethos as I introduce more (relatively low cost) interactive technology to the classroom – the students connect more by displaying their work. So areas of the room are set aside ready for student posters which can then be augmented using Aurasma, CodeBug projects can be displayed in a gallery area around the LAUNCH posters, the robotics created by students in extra curricular clubs are always on display. It does sound like I’m looking forward to the room becoming a slightly updated version of Eduardo Paolozzi’s studio…
At this point the desks are in, the screen is in a more suitable position so that all students can view, the double whiteboards are up and the power provision in the classroom has been enhanced. There are also elements of the hackable classroom in place and the students will begin to use these as part of their lessons in the coming weeks and months
Caffeine Tangent 