Making it work

If you’re a teacher of technology with kids, you need to read this.

If you’re a member of the information technology department in a school district, you need to read this.

No adults allowed: Google designed its new tech lab specifically for teens

Yeah, I know the answer.

“We’re in it for the kids.”

When you design a technology space in your school, who does the design?

Administrators and teachers? Desks in a row and all facing the same direction to a data projector or other display device.

Technology person? Designed after some of the great spaces that they learned in at college or university. If you’re cabling, then you’ll want to make sure that they’re within reach of a router to minimize the amount of cable needed.

Certainly this was a mindset when the idea was to plop a traditional lab into place.

Did anyone ever ask the end user, the students, how it should be put together?

We’ve got a whole lot better in many places with the use of wireless technology. There are so many advantages to this technology. Kids can pick up their laptop and use it where they feel comfortable. Still, when all is said and done, the logistics were designed by adults largely to make teaching efficient.

Moving on to a STEM solution, how is that equipment installed? In one spot? In bins where students could mix and match and move to a location they want?

Of course, this is a “one of” scenario not easily replicable everywhere. But, still, there are some interesting things that can be picked from the article. You may not be able to completely redo things, but you just might be able to pick and choose some things that could be changed.

What would YOUR STEM implementation look like if you took some ideas from this article?