Early in October, I wrote a blog post called "Thinking about Space," which was more or less a wishlist for a Dream Teaching Space for our CCR collaboration here at Stanford. Well, several months later, we're really not much closer to realizing that dream, but we have begun to stabilize a very successful model for using the space that's available to us right now.
Our videoconferences all take place in Wallenberg Hall,where we reserve a separate space for each student group to work in during video conferences. For most video conferences, we opt for 5 groups -- though we've had as many as 9 groups as a time, which means spreading students across three different floors in the building (quite a workout for those of us in Tech Support here!). Here are some of the space arrangements we use to accommodate our groups:
Assigned Classroom: One group is always stationed in their assigned Wallenberg Classroom, in this case, room 125. The students work on a collaboration station using a PWR computer and plasma screen.
We've used this space a lot in the past -- in fact, last year, we would station two groups in this same space,
a practice that we've discontinued largely because of noise issues - students found that having multiple groups in that same room made it too loud for them to be able to concentrate effectively on their collaborative tasks. The nice thing about this room is that it is relatively stable -- though we've had some software conflicted issues that seem to be resolved. The room itself is relatively big, and students just use one quarter of it; the screen is in a good position and is large enough for students to have a greater sense of technological transparency.
Boxcar Rooms: This series of rooms on the 4th floor of Wallenberg Hall have only recently been made available to us for class use, though they remain accessible by ID card only (a slight problem for getting students groups into their rooms!). They take their name from the rolling doors -- composed of writable surfaces :) -- on each side of the rooms. The set up varies with each boxcar room; though we need to supply our own computer, webcam and microphone for all but one of the rooms.
This one, Big Four, is very nicely set up for video conferencing
...but, clearly, is too small for groups of more than 3 students.
The room next to it, Promatory, fits 3-4 students comfortably,
but we need to roll in a large screen for our video conferences, which, as you see, is slightly too elevated. On the Sweden side, because of the screen height and the fact that our webcam is perched on top of it, they get something of a birds-eye or God-like view of their Stanford partners.
The room next to that, Union Pacific, doubles as a room for gaming research for another Stanford project, but makes a very nice venue for our video conference sessions - though again best for groups of 3 or less, especially considering the gaming equipment that is stored in the room.
(The screen is in front of them, on the wall).
My favorite room might be one that we have just begun to use -- called the Tender -- which is relatively spacious and uncluttered (as opposed, for instance, to the homey but somewhat disorganized feel of the Union Pacific Gaming Room).
Unfortunately, we have to roll a screen into that one as well, which is again a bit too high (as I write this I realize that I should look into whether these screens are adjustable ...)
The last boxcar room is called Judah, and although it is quite convenient in that it contains a collaboration station already set up for us, students consistently remark that the screen itself is a bit too small for video conference purposes.
These are by far our favorite group spaces, both because of their close proximity to one another and their perfect size for small group work.
Other rooms: We do occasionally use other rooms as well, particularly when we have more than 5 groups. Our first recourse in that event would be the basement rooms of Wallenberg Hall, small group space with smartboards mounted on the walls.
A number of factors make these rooms less desirable than the boxcars, including their remoteness from all the other rooms we use, the height of the screen, and the fact that the computers are on a different network, which occasionally causes problems.
We also sometimes "roll out" screens into common spaces, such as the space outside the classroom
or, as an emergency measure, into the open space outside the boxcar rooms.
We thought this set-up in particular would be disturbing to students, since they all had to work off a small 15" screen laptop, but, as you see,
it didn't necessarily affect their engagement with their Swedish partners too severly.
Innovations: The last thing that I'll note on this much-too-long blog post is a recent innovation in space usage. We've begun having an instructor's station set up, both for instructors to use when presenting their opening remarks (you can see the closed doors to the boxcar rooms on the left of the image, by the way)
and also for observing during workshops by virtually visiting the different groups, therefore allowing instructors to watch group activities in a less intrusive manner.
Our goal of course remains to find a dedicated, stable space for our project. Right now, before every video conference, we need to set up computers, webcams, and microphones in each room, then configure the computer settings and set up the software -- and break them down when we leave. I find it funny to consider that while we spend so much time thinking about how to make the technology transparent for the students -- so that they can focus on their interactions with their international partners -- we don't spend as much effort thinking about how to make it transparent to instructors. What we need to also keep in mind is a way to make the technology more transparent (and stable) for the instructional staff, so there can be less focus on the apparatus of making connections, and more on the pedagogy of effective collaboration.
I don't in any way mean to sound ungrateful. The boxcar rooms have in many ways been an amazing solution to space challenges that we faced in the past. We are quite fortunate to have such great spaces available for us to reserve and such a great support staff at Wallenberg Hall to help us put it all together for each video conference! But we can always dream ...
