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Technology-Enabled Teaching >> If You Build It, We Should Come
6/28/2005
When technology experts are involved from the get-go, ‘smart classroom’ construction projects are dramatically improved—and less costly.
When a campus is engaged in an architecture-and-technology integration project, learning from mistakes can be a costly educational process indeed. Yet, simply knowing more about how such an integration process should work, who the players should be (and what they can bring to the table), and how all project participants should, ideally, work together to create effective technology-enabled teaching environments will result in better project results, and fewer gray hairs for anyone tasked with the technology planning for construction projects.
Back to the Beginning
Campus construction projects often begin as a gleam in the eye of a campus administrator. Then, as the project progresses from concept to detailed architectural program, the administration and facilities staff work with the project architects to determine and meet the needs of the interior of the proposed building, while working on the exterior of the building, to create an appropriate aesthetic statement for the campus. The selection of building materials, the flow of interior spaces, even the human emotions the designed environment evokes, are all carefully considered.
-Steve Fitzgerald, University of Minnesota
Yet, curiously, as the architectural program is getting off the ground, the technology that will live within the edifice is often discussed only in broad, general terms. Buzzwords such as “smart classrooms” and “wireless technologies” appear in nearly every program document for new college and university instructional buildings. On average, between 1 to 3 percent of the overall project budget for new campus construction is for built-in technology, an amount that varies widely depending on the needs and goals of each individual project—and depending upon how early in the process technologists come into the picture.
Dollars aside, the question of when technology staff should be involved in the planning, programming, and design phase of designing instruction and learning spaces is one of great interest to those who are responsible for putting technology-enabled teaching tools in the hands of educators and students. While there is a lot to be said for terrazzo floors and three-story atriums, there are few systems costing only 1 to 3 percent of overall construction budgets that have as great an effect on the education process as d'es technology.
Without effective technology integration, campus buildings are decorative, but not functional. On the flip side, without good design, campus buildings are functional but lifeless. It’s the melding of architectural design and technology planning that allows both to happen in a way that is complementary, not conflicting.
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