Making of a Learning Theater

September 24, 2016 by Brian Hughes

"Library Orientation" in the Learning Theater, Summer 2016 by Yuntong Man — “Library Orientation” in the Learning Theater, Summer 2016 by Yuntong Man

I just had the great fortune of spending two days with Leakey Foundation members exploring the meaning of evolution (and human origins) in relation to the theme of “human survival.” It was an amazing experience led by seven thoughtful and well-spoken scientists speaking about diverse topics such as physiology, virology, climatology, behavioral psychology, and more.

It not only led me to reflect on how to describe my work, but (perhaps predictably) how to describe it at a cocktail party in under two minutes. And for me, that’s the challenge of describing EdLab.

What are folks at EdLab doing?

At EdLab, our work touches on many of the ideas that were explored during two days of discussions on the survival of humans—namely, how can education help us solve our most difficult problems as a species?

We do a lot of experimental software and multimedia projects at EdLab, and we also run the Gottesman Libraries—a local, service-oriented side of our work that keeps us enmeshed in the immediate, day-to-day work of the Teachers College community of 5,000 teachers and researchers. And for the past two years, some of us have been involved in making a “learning theater”—an extension of both the “experimental” and “practical” sides of our work.

Creating a “Learning Theater”

I’ve been deeply involved in this project of conceptualizing, developing, building, and programming the Smith Learning Theater. Indeed, just recently I’ve spent many hours optimizing the workflow of the soon-to-be-completed AV system; multimedia, however, is only one aspect of this expansive project. In light of my recent cocktail party experience, I’ll risk summarizing the purpose and mission of this experimental space as follows:

The Learning Theater is designed as a multi-use space for active learning supported by innovative multimedia technology, a unique software platform, and the most knowledgeable teachers in the world.

(Oh, did I forget to mention that it’s a unique and complex architectural endeavor at one of the world’s leading educational institutions, and possibly the most advanced space of its kind in the world!? That’s right: pretty cool stuff.)

We’ll be unpacking this mission over the next decade, and trying to live up to the potential this space affords us and our collaborators. But if someone asks me right now what that means to make this space work, these are some of the ideas that come to mind:

Exploring the pedagogical and technological potential of such a space with everyone who uses it.
Working smarter, harder, and finding the right colleagues who are willing to undertake this inherently interdisciplinary work.
Taking risks, and resisting institutional pressures that diminish creativity.
Making an effort to share Learning Theater experiences with the whole world.
Thoughtfully supporting even modest efforts to use the Learning Theater.
…and rigorously demonstrating how learning happens in an active, comfortable space!

The Learning Theater should change the world. It should change education and, importantly, perceptions of education; it should deepen respect for teaching as a noble, complex, and valuable vocation.

This week I witnessed a handful of caring, thoughtful, visionary, and eminent scientists agreeing that, above all, the well-being of the human race essentially rests on the ability of teachers (of all kinds) to inspire billions of people to be more imaginative, curious, and empathetic.

It’s a complex problem a whole bunch of people need to work together to solve.

Join us!

Opening Up Museums

January 31, 2013 by Brian Hughes

I really enjoy Nina Simon’s blog, and her recent talk is especially exciting: Museum 2.0: Opening Up Museums: My TEDxSantaCruz Talk.

With an upcoming year-long exhibition highlighting the 125-year history of Teachers College, EdLab designers are focused on eliciting “audience” participation in our exhibition environment – three floors of Russell Hall (nearly 30,000 sq. ft.!).

I like how Simon frames the issue of participation around the challenge of making it meaningful – because it’s all too easy to create meaningless activities. But at the same time, she suggests, the hooks for engagement have to be simple enough that people are willing to try something new.

That’s tough to do!

I find that easy and interesting are often at odds. For example, our current goal is to use Twitter as a tool of engagement. But what do you ask people to contribute? 160 characters is already technically simple for folks with a Twitter account, but what kind of content should we elicit?

For me, solving this issue for a particular content is the essence of an exhibition design process – a process that should result in a unique and engaging solution that serves as a great foundation for learning.

One strategy is to aim to make the results of small contributions cumulative – either in a way that creates one large result, or as a mosaic showcasing individual contributions. Another is to make them personal (perhaps identity-oriented is a similar but useful way to think of this).

Another strategy is to offer an extrinsic reward – to offer a prize, for example. But this seems to be less genuine, or at least less likely to relate to learning. On the other hand, this could be a hook that engages a contributor to do more.

One recent example of a bad interactive solution that comes to mind is from the recent Creatures of Light exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History (sorry guys). While the exhibit had some nice elements, I was disappointed by the gigantic firefly (six feet long?) that hung from the ceiling and glowed at the press of a button (working from memory here) at the entrance of the show. What did this accomplish?

I assume it was supposed to echo the bioluminescence theme of the exhibit, but for my 3-year-old it really just raised the question, “Are fireflies really that big?” I’m not saying that elements need to work for everyone, but really: aren’t there dozens of more exciting ways to show off the mechanisms of science while creating a stronger foundation for learning? (Wouldn’t a six foot magnifying glass aimed at a life-size firefly been many times more awesome? Aren’t there ways to use lighting to better effect?)

Using a traditional exhibition toolbox (scale, lighting, drama, etc.) alongside newer technologies is a big challenge. I’m excited to see what we can come up with here at Teachers College!

Schools for Tomorrow

September 21, 2011 by Brian Hughes

Nothing like a livestream to make it real.

I’m speaking on “Tools Available in College” at The New York Times Schools for Tomorrow event. In their words:

. . . we’re bringing together 400 of the most influential leaders in teaching, government, philanthropy and industry. The goal: to harness the power of technology to improve the learning experience. Democratize access to quality education. And elevate the American student to a higher level.

I’m looking forward to the dialogue!

Publishing with Libraries

April 2, 2011 by Brian Hughes

Last week I attended the annual Association of College & Research Libraries conference in Philadelphia. Julia and I presented a poster on Pressible, and how our library is using it to expand the publishing possibilities available to our community.

Fig. 1: a flattering tweet about our poster session

I attended panel and paper sessions on “embedded librarianship, “building lean and mean web project teams,” and “connecting to the campus through creativity.” And Julia and I went to the great keynote on “declaring interdependence” by Raj Patel, the author of several books about food, economics, and democracy. Overall, it was a great day to think about libraries, information, and related educational issues.

I came away from the conference with a lot of different ideas. Instead of trying to make sense of it all (from project ideas to criticism), I’m just going to list a few:

Co-blogging. Librarians can support student writing projects by helping to host, edit, and collaborate around public blogging.
Augmenting reality. It would be cool to have an augmented reality mobile app for “seeing” alternative social perspectives. This app could make new kinds of choices possible by making them visible (e.g., choosing where to eat, shop, and hang out). But how could the data be generated, and by whom?
Reader advocacy. How can books better, and more directly, promote social action?
Cultivate a constituency. To strengthen democracy, all educational institutions need to cultivate student activism and civic-mindedness.
Pressible TV. What if made a short video of the daily headlines on Pressible? Could it better serve an audience that wants to read less but still be up to date about the community? If we had this stream of content, what else could we do with it (besides featuring it on the network site)?

Looking back at my notes, I see the theme of scholarly publishing emerging. Most of the sessions I attended touched on opportunities and problems around publishing—from the perspective of either a librarian, student, or scholar. I think these ideas stand out to me because there are so many opportunities around publishing at colleges and universities, not only “scholarly” publishing per se, but “educational” publishing more broadly.

The theme of our Pressible poster reflects this: our idea of “small ‘p’ publishing” is about creating new opportunities for students, researchers, teachers, and professionals to learn from and with each other. New technology and a lot of old-fashioned hard work is making it possible. And now that it’s possible, and on the rise, it only remains to be seen if these new avenues of publishing can have a positive impact on learning, and even a transformative impact on the education sector.

Overall, Thursday’s program was a very interesting and dense (sadly it was the only day I was able to attend the conference). I was appreciative of the conference organizers who clearly follow the “less is more” maxim when scheduling paper and panel sessions—the sessions I went to were attended by hundreds of seemingly attentive, inquisitive conference-goers. This alone left me with a positive feeling about the future of libraries.

Lastly, some quotes from Raj:

On the Dustbowl: “It isn’t an example of the ‘tragedy of the commons‘ because people were forced to enact the counterproductive behavior.”
On democracy: “Apparently the voting public thought Obama would be the pizza delivery dude of change.”
On hedge fund managers: “Luck [of class, education, and ability] isn’t the thing that should entitle you to that kind of money.”

Hey, I’ll be the first to admit, these were not ideas I expected to come from a library-related conference.

“The Summer of Pressible” EdLab Seminar

May 20, 2010 by Brian Hughes

Thanks to Molly’s great documentation, I have some recollection of the seminar I participated in yesterday. We’re counting down the days to our launch event, and are busy making final modifications to the platform. It’s going to be a lot of fun helping people use it this summer (NKOTB notwithstanding).