Is your school ready for the future? Part 7/12

Building Condition Assessment

Education Readiness Review

 A readiness assessment is required to determine what is needed to create facilities that meet the perceived needs of future educational challenges.  Dr. Darren Cannell will be providing twelve review criteria that can and should be used to reviewing your facilities.  This exercise will  make sure your facilities will be ready for the future educational challenges as predicted by the latest educational research and teaching.

The concern of such an educational review is that it will support future challenges but will not dictate the direction of the educational changes.  The design and approach need to be such that it supports current practices but is versatile enough to accommodate the possible future changes and trends.  To effectively assess the readiness it becomes necessary to review the perceived future trends in educational technology and educational pedagogy and theory.   This review of the trends will have direct ramifications on the facilities and will require certain designs to accommodate these trends.

Dr. Darren Cannell is a consultant who does building assessments and staff training.  He can be contacted at 

dcannell5@gmail.com

The seventh of the 12 trends is as follows:

Computer Labs Conversion

Computer labs in the schools need to be converted into digital production space.  In the information age student needs space to create, consume, remix and share material with each other and across the world.  Students today are “interpersonal, logical, special, intrapersonal, musical, linguistic, naturalist and body-kinesthetic learners.  Educators needed to incorporate the authentic learning characteristics of the real-world relevance of active learning.  The quick adoption of social networking by the youths of the world both surprised and frightened the educational systems and have resulted in a banning of many of the Web2.0 tools in schools.  Educators who use the current web tools create a learning environment and community which reflects the reality of the students living in the information age.   Creation of a connected learning environment is dynamic and motivating in worldly variation.