InTRO hosted its first on-campus event as an office at the end of October: we coordinated the University of Oregon’s participate in the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI)’s Fall Focus webinar, which were all about active learning spaces and creative classroom technologies! “Reimagining Learning Spaces: Design, Technology, and Assessment” was a two-day webinar featuring speakers from institutions that have…

• built new technology enhanced active learning spaces
• retrofitted existing teaching and learning spaces in cool and innovative ways
• and conducted internal research on the usage patterns and educational benefits of such spaces

UO LearnLab classroom

Here at UO, we have several active learning spaces scattered across our campus. But as our institution embarks on a massive capital campaign and begins new construction projects, we think it’s important that educational technology have a role in the planning process. Nothing is worse than building a brand-new space and then fitting it for technology–that leaves the institution in a retrofit cycle from the very beginning. A cost-effective and pedagogically effective approach involves tech & learning staff from the outset and in every step of the process–but those staff need to be informed contributors. This webinar thus served as a means of preparing members of our edtech community to take on active roles in conversations about the University of Oregon’s physical plant and classroom designs.

We worked with the support of Academic Extension to host this event at the Baker Downtown Center, and had a total of 14 attendees over the two days–a baker’s dozen from Eugene and one telecommuter from our Portland campus. At the conclusion of each morning’s presentations, we hosted a lunch and videoconferenced with the Portland attendee, discussing what takeaways we might bring back to UO.

Some of the presentation highlights included:

• A great discussion of McGill’s technology retrofits (their working group held its meetings all over campus, the better to actually experience the limits of different classroom environments)
• ELI’s own Learning Space Rating System (while we didn’t complete this activity during the webinar itself, we thought their spreadsheet does a great job of articulating who should be at the table for any planning discussions)
• Loyola Marymount’s master plan (they moved their classroom management unit into their IT division, resulting in smoother coordination of both physical plant and technology infrastructure)
•  and Grand Valley State’s new library building, which collects data on student use of its spaces and compares that usage to their academic success.

While perhaps next time, we might frame the webinar differently, using it to guide a discussion-oriented experience, we gleaned a lot of useful data from serving as hosts, and we appreciate all of the work ELI did to bring these presentations together under their umbrella!

InTRO is seeking suggestions for future events we should host–either for instructional technology service providers, or for instructional staff. Have a suggestion? Leave a comment on this blog, or e-mail us!