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!
As cloud computing has become an integral part of the lives of students at public schools, it has increased the importance of a place generations of students have turned to for much more analog learning needs—the library. Both public and school libraries have always been a source of information for students. And while the Internet has undoubtedly…
I had the enviable opportunity recently to meet with a group of admissions officers from 10 different colleges and universities to talk about the college admissions process in the digital age. I went into the meeting with a list of questions: Source: The Top 7 Things College Admissions Professionals Revealed When Asked About Social Media…
The Bridge concept — low-cost private schools for the world’s poorest children — has galvanized many of the Western investors and Silicon Valley moguls who learn about the project. Bill Gates, the Omidyar Network, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the World Bank have all invested in the company; Pearson, the multinational textbook-and-assessment company, has done…
“Why can’t I be more like [insert name of your favorite speaker]?” When lawyers ask this question, it usually means they’ve been on their feet in court or presenting to potential clients and it didn’t go well. They felt anxious, insecure, unsettled — far from the confidence they’d hoped to project. Source: Confidence Is Personal: Being…
In the real world, there’s no textbook or curriculum. There’s no way to practice. There’s no source of continuous feedback. There are no teachers — it’s just you and whoever you can convince to help you. So how do you learn something no one can teach you? How do you become a world-class expert on something few…
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…
