Four years ago, Chris Nagele did what many other technology executives have done before — he moved his team into an open concept office.
His staff had been exclusively working from home, but he wanted everyone to be together, to bond and collaborate more easily. It quickly became clear, though, that Nagele had made a huge mistake. Everyone was distracted, productivity suffered and the nine employees were unhappy, not to mention Nagele himself.
Classrooms are essentially open offices. Well, they’re even worse than open offices since the desks and chairs are usually not comfortable and their is no ownership of what little space the students get.
What’s more, certain open spaces can negatively impact our memory. This is especially true for hotdesking, an extreme version of open plan working where people sit wherever they want in the work place, moving their equipment around with them.
Whoa, that sounds a lot like how classrooms work now!
QuizPedia is a fun and engaging learning tool that can be used in primary education and onwards. And it’s free! How is it different to a typical quiz making tool? Quizzes aren’t new to the classroo… Source: Get students learning by MAKING quizzes instead of TAKING quizzes. – EDTECH 4 BEGINNERS I’ve had students create…
Then, just to add to the confusion, management decided that we should have two student intakes: one in August/September (the traditional starting time for new students), and one in February. This meant that, if we were fast enough, we could trial the new curriculum on a small group of students that started in February, rather…
Cricut dropped a major change into a feature update announcement last Friday: Any Cricut device owner who does not subscribe to the Cricut Access cloud platform will be limited to no more than 20 uploads/imports per month to Design Space. (Designs made using elements Cricut sells through Design Space do not count against the limit.) The change applies not…
With all due respect, this is what I call Edutech Shiny Toy Syndrome. And it is out of control. Kids don’t need screens for individualized educational experiences. They are already on those stultifying, addictive, isolating screens far too much. Bah! Humbug! Source: Silicon Valley’s Schools Program — Students Are an Afterthought | National Review I don’t…
Findings showed that using video instead of other teaching methods resulted in small improvements in student learning, whereas using video in addition to other teaching methods resulted in larger improvements. Source: Study: Pre-Recorded Videos Prove More Effective for Student Learning Than In-Person Instruction – Higher Education The article discusses the various advantages to using pre-recorded…
This morning, Google is announcing the next steps in its plan to disrupt the world of education, including the launch of new certificate programs that are designed to help people bridge any skills gap and get qualifications in high-paying, high-growth job fields–with one noteworthy feature: No college degree necessary. Source: How Google’s New Career Certificates Could Disrupt the College Degree…
