This was the first official day of the focus session. I’d call it a full day.

8:00 welcome and introductions, followed by a brief presentation to define “learning space” for the discussions and presentations to follow. Like all definitions, it was useful both to focus the discussion and to give us something to kick against when we wanted to move toward complexity and nuance in our thinking. Then an 80-minute small group discussion on what is important in learning spaces and what space characteristics enable learning, in which I learned several inspiring things, most prominently that environmental psychologists have a name for the quality of an environment that arouses expectations without satisfying them in any predictable way: they call it “mystery,” and I’d argue (and did, after Scott taught us that term) that all good learning spaces have to have some of that quality of mystery. We also talked about multiple focal points of attention, the perennial problem of the instructor station (where does it go? how much “command presence” must it/should it have? etc.) and even more philosophically about how students might customize their learning space to reflect a sense of joint ownership and authorship. The latter is an example of how my recent experiences in cyberspace have inspired me to think about analogous items in physical space.

After Betty, Jeannie, Arthur, Scott, and I had batted around these questions for the time alloted, there was a break, and then we were back for a brief presentation on “what is a design principle?” This question was especially intriguing as it focused not on design specifics but on what kind of “behaviors” (not the word I’d choose, but I digress) we want to encourage/enable within the space. This distinction is like the one that informs the effort I and my staff are always making with faculty when we ask them to tell us what they want to happen, not to specify the tool. I’ve been in enough design work to see that it’s a real challenge to stay focused on what activities and outcomes one desires when all the talk turns to podiums and projectors and “smart” classrooms.

But wait: there’ s more. A 90-minute presentation followed, with case studies from MIT and the University of Arizona on lessons learned in major learning space projects. The recent MIT “Stata Center” project was one example. The very long-a’borning Instructional Innovation Facility at Arizona was another. In both cases, especially for Arizona, some sense of crisis led to an urgent re-examination of teaching, learning, and curriculum–and innovation was the result. Although I’m sure it’s not always the case, in these instances the “Field Of Dreams” principle seemed to operate: if you build it, they will come. The corollary is that they will try everything they can to halt construction until it’s too late (but even then they’ll try), for it’s nearly impossible to imagine what the innovation will be like until the facility is actually built. Visionary leadership (and the readiness to have your head handed to you on a platter, and without a nice dance to precede it, either) is a vital part of the undertaking, although such leadership alone isn’t anything like enough to make the project work. My discussion group envisioned a learning space “sandbox” that would be reconfigurable to try out different approaches to design and function, and I learned about the late, lamented “Building 20” at MIT that was torn down so the Stata Center could be built. A bit ironic, that….

I’ll save for later the summary of the marvelous synthesis Dan Gilbert (I think it was) gave us regarding his experience of UVA and MIT, although I confess that it was a little hard to hear that comparison going in MIT’s favor. The Stata Center is quite innovative, no doubt about it, but there’s more even today to admire about UVA’s architecture than Gilbert would admit. Perhaps his enthusiasm for MIT led him to overstate his case.

Lunch (at last). Then back to work. An hour on Future Learning Spaces. Seventy-five minutes on Technology Convergence and the Future of Learning Spaces. A short break. Then a fine ninety minutes from Jose Mestre (Physics, MIT) on Using Learning Spaces to Encourage Deeper Learning, based on the latest edition of How People Learn. Much food for thought there, and some things to challenge . I’ll summarize Jose’s presentation later as well.

By the time we got out, I was full of ideas and energy, actually a little TOO much energy for the reception that followed, so I beat feet up Mass. Ave to check out the used vinyl/CD shops. Made quite the major haul at Looney Tunes, including a Dutch pressing of Focus 3, an original double-eye Columbia pressing of Chicago II, an Lp of madrigals by Thomas Weelkes (Ian Partidge on tenor–sublime!), an Lp of madrigals by poor mad(?) Gesualdo, and a used CD of BBC sessions by XTC. At the Harvard Book Store I found a remaindered copy of Gjertrud Schnackenberg’s Supernatural Love: Collected Poems. A steak sub at Cinderellas, some ice cream from Toscanini’s, and so to bed, dear reader. Tomorrow, more lessons learned, and more questions raised. But tomorrow is another day.

I figured the Dylan theme was worth the stretch for one more blog.

I’m writing this from the Hotel@MIT in Cambridge, Massachussetts, conference hotel for the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative Fall Focus Session on “Learning Spaces.” First things first: I love my hotel room. Spacious, tech-themed in a very tasteful way right down to the bedspread covered in equations, a comfy chair AND an ergonomic desk chair that sits at a very elegant desk (I covet this desk lamp) where a tea/coffee maker is just to one side. Lucky for me the conference promises to be a good one; otherwise, with the complimentary broadband I’d probably never leave the room.

See? I’m not hard to please. Well, it lacks a full multimedia kit, true. I feel my passion ebbing.

This afternoon the group had a two-hour walking tour of learning spaces at MIT. Sidebar: a classroom is a learning space, often not a very good one, but the idea of “learning space” encompasses the design and use of any place where teaching and learning occur. Think of a learning space as a focused world that encourages and facilitates reflection and creation. At any rate, the tour was enjoyable and informative, but a couple of the spaces were eye-openers, especially a physics classroom that looked like a super-neat sports bar (sans bar) with a slew of circular tables at which students would do their work and, when appropriate, attend to the teacher. Screens and projected images ringed the room, and each screen was flanked by numbered white boards. Actually, in some respects the room looked like a crude but effective model of the inside of a mind. So maybe that’s one way to conceptualize learning spaces: they should model aspects of mind, or be constructed around (or to resemble) metaphors of mental activity. Administrative and organizational efficiencies are not negligible, but they shouldn’t drive the design (even though that’s what usually happens, as we all know).

Let the revels begin. Tomorrow and half the day on Friday I’ll be surrounded by bright and creative people who like to think about thinking and about education and about educational engineering. Life could be a lot worse. Great food tonight, too, at Legal Seafood (memo to self: remember to look into banner ad possibilities for blog) in the fine company of Kathy and Bob and Gene. The Best Idea of the Evening Award goes to Kathy for the notion of a mid-life sabbatical for everyone. Take a breather, take stock, and go back prepared to “make good choices,” as the mom says to the young woman in Freaky Friday. Actually, that gratuitous movie reference is mine; the great idea is all Kathy’s.

I’ve made some skins available to you, too–see the menu on the right, below.

Ah, Dylan’s Mr. Jones. I see him all about. I channel him regularly, myself. It’s genuinely difficult to imagine the world that cyberspace is constructing, which means it’s hard to make it real to ourselves. The dot-com gold rush of the 1990’s came and went, and for a little while it was possible to think that Internet mania was another fad, but the reality of the socio-cognitive changes wrought by networked computing–and the opportunities they represent for education–is no fad. We must at least try to stretch our minds to conceptualize what’s happening if we are to be true to our mission as teachers. And here’s the rub: we’re all teachers, because we’re all learners–or should be.

I was forcibly reminded of all these truths myself recently. (Now that I think about it, the reminder came at about the same time I last blogged. Perhaps I’m just now emerging from the shock.) I’ve long been interested in computer-mediated asychronous communication as a way of taking learning beyond the classroom, where a four-walls, time-bound design borrowed from the industrial model of the assembly line has, I believe, encouraged a pernicious view of education as a series of one-shot encounters over an arbitrary “course.” By contrast, things like listservs and threaded discussion forums keep the party going, so to speak: the lights are always on and there’s always some conversation, and if you want to change the subject you can do so with a couple of clicks and a good hook for a subject line.

But every good party needs a good den, rec room, clubhouse, or Moose Lodge. This year I finally got one made, and found out just how close to Mr. Jones I had become: “you know there’s something happening, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” (Bob Dylan, “Ballad of a Thin Man”).

The discussion forum I’m running in my Introduction to Film Studies class is in my web space this time, not on the course management system’s official, dreary, and deadening forum. This new forum, which runs on freeware called phpBB, beats the “official” stuff all cold. Students can post anonymously (though I know who they are, since the posts are done for a grade). They can use avatars, striking little graphic icons that they choose to represent themselves. They can send personal messages to each other within the forum, can reach each other via IM or Yahoo mail or regular email, and post links to their own web pages–all just a click away within the context of each post they contribute or respond to. Also just a click away in each post: profile information that shares whatever the writer chooses to reveal about him or herself to the forum.

The conversation flows more naturally, too, because the posts are arranged in a series of pages devoted to each thread, not like a list of message headers. The graphics are friendly and pleasing, and students can customize the look and feel to the extent provided for by the administrator (me), who can make a variety of “skins” available to the user. There are even handy icons to indicate where the new posts are. You can ask the system to email you when a thread you’re contributing to has a fresh response. You can see at a glance who’s on the system (if they’ve chosen to reveal their presence), how many times they’ve posted, how many total posts and topics have been contributed to date, and a couple of other stats about participation. And I’m sure there are features I’m forgetting.

So far this year, my class is on track to double the quantity of participation I’ve had with the “official” tool. That’s a good thing. But the real revelation, for me anyway, came early on as the forum was just getting started.

I was home, sitting in the stereo sweet spot, as is my wont, doing some work on my wireless tablet PC. I went to the forum to see how things were going. Several interesting posts caught my eye. One in particular seemed unusually thoughtful and articulate. I had no idea who it was; the username wasn’t the real name. What I did know was that I was intrigued. I became doubly intrigued when I saw I had a private message from this person requesting that I provide several optional “skins” for the forum. Ah. That’s new. A student wants me to help him or her to customize a virtual learning space. Ah.

Then I noticed that the writer had enabled the www button on his or her posts. I clicked on the button and found myself on this writer’s blog. I read some of the blog and discovered that the young man (as it turned out) had made a number of short films on digital video. Another click, and I saw the list of his most recent creations. Another click, and, still online and in the stereo sweet spot, I was watching his movie.

These connections were rapid, fascinating, detailed, and led to my feeling I had made a deeper connection with the student’s world than I would have dreamed possible at such an early stage. That’s exhilarating. Even more importantly, however, I had seen something of the way students accept and use cyberspace as a birthright, as a place where things they value can be communicated, as a place where they’re genuinely connected to their experience.

It would be a pity if education, especially higher education, stifles a yawn and goes on with business as usual. But that’s my night fear, tonight. Who will help us understand and embrace these new horizons? Where are the Chuck Berrys, Elvises, and Beatles of cyberspace?

I know they’re there, like the music of the spheres, if we can just tune in and make the time to listen.

I see it’s been nearly two weeks since my last entry, and that a mere skeleton … not a very good example of responsible citizenship in the blogosphere. Mea culpa. Onward and upward.

Coming soon to this very blog:

You know there’s something happening, but you don’t know what it is–do you, Mr. Higher Ed.?
Flashdrive Design and the Peter Principle
Entanglement, Teleportation, and Quantum Computing

Yes, tonight I put WinXP SP2 on my trusty tablet, the honorable Toshiba Portege M200 (all rise, says the bailiff). And … nothing happened. Nothing untoward, that is. The custom download was about 75 MB, nearly 200MB less than the everything download that’s been available online for a week or so. The download was verified, then installed, all automatically. It was also nice to see a system restore point set automatically. The machine rebooted (after it asked politely and I said “sure”), and when it came up again, I was asked if I wanted to set automatic update to “on.” “Sure,” I replied. Then the boot finishes and voila, mirabile dictu, Windows Security Center launches. It tells me that autoupdate is on but Windows can’t tell if my virus definitions are up to date. I gave it permission to stop monitoring: “I’ll do that myself, thanks.” I note that the firewall is on. I exit Security Center and go about my business.

Nothing is wrong.

If there’s another shoe, it’s either a slipper and I couldn’t hear it fall, or else it’s taking a long, long time to thump on the floor.

Emboldened, I’ll probably go ahead with the update on my prime machine at school tomorrow. Watch me jinx that one, too. 😉

Folks may talk about computing on the deck.
People may say they surf on the beach.
Friends may want their notebook at the breakfast table.
For me, happiness is a warm laptop as I sit in the stereo sweet spot, do my work, and listen to my music.
Tonight’s treasures:
Band On The Run
Wes Montgomery: Goin’ Out Of My Head
CCR: Pendulum (SACD, yum)

And so to bed.

This afternoon I helped returning students at my university get their computers configured and back online on the campus network. There were changes this year that meant the process was substantially more involved than it was last year. This year students had to install a suite of software to ensure their computers were up to date on OS patches and antivirus software before they could log onto the network with full privileges. There were snafus aplenty as students made their way through the new requirement. I and a small army of other IT folk were on hand in the dorms–excuse me, residence halls–to offer help when help was needed. I was waylaid about seven times during my three hours on duty, and each computer took me an average of twenty or twenty-five minutes–not because I’m so slow, necessarily, but because the difficulties were so tangled and interrelated: multiple catch-22s like getting antivirus updates even as new viruses are coming over the unprotected wires.

And viruses there were in plenty. I fancied I could also feel them coming through the CAT-5 cables as I did my work. I imagined they were coming in through the suspended ceiling, just the way the monsters did in Aliens. At the same time, however, I was aware that another set of creatures was trying just as hard to get through those cables: the fellow human beings who were trying to contact the person whose machine I was working on. As I worked to restore the Internet connections to full life, I could gauge my success by how quickly the screen would light up with Instant Messaging contacts, outgoing and incoming. It was as if the computer’s virtual eyes opened, blinked, and began to see again.

So I worked through the afternoon, beating back the viruses, welcoming back the great wide networked world, and being thanked by student after student for restoring an old friend and the essential connections it enables.

It was a good day to be good with computers.

I like aphorisms, if they’re thought-provoking and not pat. Good aphorisms are like good melodies: they tap into the inevitable without being at all predictable.

One of my favorite aphorists of education is a man named Jerome Bruner. I’m not sure what he’s doing now, but in the mid-1990’s he was Research Professor of Psychology and Senior Research Fellow in Law at New York University. He’s certainly a member of my Secret Societry for Real School. I’ve long been in love with his book The Culture of Education, and long intended (as I pave the road to Hell, alas) to read his other books as well. In any event, here are a few choice quotations that are short and pithy enough to qualify as aphorisms by my standards. And if the quotations are really too long to be aphorisms, then I claim blogger’s license.

I’m very grateful Bruner wrote them down, and that I can share them with you.

Indeed, the very institutionalization of schooling may get in the way of creating a subcommunity of learners who bootstrap each other.

Nothing is “culture free,” but neither are individuals simply mirrors of their culture. It is the interaction between them that both gives a communal cast to individual thought and imposes a certain unpredictable richness on any culture’s way of life, thought, or feeling.

School … [is] both an exercise in consciousness raising about the possibilities of communal mental activity, and … a means for acquiring knowledge and skill.

[E]ducation is a major embodiment of a culture’s way of life, not just a preparation for it.

[T]he metalinguistic gift, the capacity to “turn around” on our language to examine and transcend its limits, is within everybody’s reach.

The chief subject matter of school, viewed culturally, is school itself. This is how most students experience it, and it determines what meaning they make of it.

[E]ducation is too consequential to too many constituencies to leave to professional educators.

Finding a place in the world, for all that it implicates the immediacy of home, mate, job, and friends, is ultimately an act of the imagination.