the future starts with you

What we were looking at a year ago...

2010-04-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

Green Dot Public Schools are transforming public education in Los Angeles. All these children are receiving the education they rightfully deserve be successful in college, leadership, and life. Green Dot works under three main bullet points - First, they create and operate high-achieving public schools where nearly all students graduate and go on to college. A pretty obvious step. Second, they help parents throughout the city organize to strengthen their neighborhood schools. This is where they really shine. Education is more of an urban planning/design/community concern instead of a isolated compartment of users from k-12. Schools are part of the neighborhood like they were in 50s. Third, they are pushing the Los Angeles Unified School District to move boldly to improve the city's public schools.

Instead of learning factories, Green Dot Green Dot envisions a public school system in L.A. as small, excellent schools that support teachers to teach creatively. The parents are encouraged to be involved, and help students learn everything they need to know - no matter what their background. Children learn more from their parents then they want to admit. Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad that they learn as well. Having parents acknowledge their impact on their children is a big step in improving the child's education and desire to learn.

Last November Bill and Melinda Gates gave a $335 million investment in teacher effectiveness, with major grants for experiments in tenure, evaluation, compensation, training and mentoring in three large school systems and a cluster of public charter schools.

The winners, picked from 10 applicants including Pittsburgh schools recieving $40 million and five charter networks in Los Angeles (Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, Inner City Education Foundation and Partnerships to Uplift Communities Schools), $60 million. I would like to know what happened to the $40 m that PGH received.

bucky said it.

2009-10-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

Ordinary Science

2009-08-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

Fold It! Let's use the mass knowledge to figure out science instead of a few hypothesizing. I think its brilliant. Kids can also learn through their adventures.

No More Books?

2009-07-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

Watch out LAUSD, the Governor Schwarzenegger has made the call. California high schools are to switch from traditional text books to digital media, starting with the math and science books this August. His reasoning- too much infor is available in digital format, why waste the small budget on textbooks that will just get outdated and lost. I totally agree that digital technology should be integral to teaching and LEARNING but this is not a posh green thing to do.... but we must keep in mind that(as John Thackara has said in his recent talk at LiftFrance09) do we really just want to "sustain" things or do we want to improve them? Tree Hugger put out a blog on this examining the pros and cons of paper versus online. They examined how much electricity one uses while reading online. If you read over 30 mins, they say its about the same "energy" as reading a book (energy that goes into a book that is.) The constant update and information availability and hyper texting though is a better argument towards the digitalization. Now, California is not buying every child an XO or an XO-2, but they are looking at putting the ebooks on e-readers. Are they going to buy them for the students? Student access to the ebooks beyond school is a big issue as many families do not have the means to afford a computer or the internet. Other alternatives are to distribute the information through means that the children already have, such as I pods and cellphones.

Vernacular Spectacular

2009-07-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

So we learned about Shigeru Ban's paper architecture. Shigeru Ban studied at the Southern California Institute of Architecture. (one of my alma matters) Ban is most-famous now for his innovative work with paper and cardboard tubing as a material for building construction. He was the first architect in Japan to construct a building primarily out of paper. Paper tubing is a great material due to its low-cost, its recyclable, low-tech and replaceable nature. He is also a huge humanitarian and focuses alot of ecological architecture.
After learning about some of his work, we had a contest in the 6th grade to collect paper tubes (mainly toilet paper rolls, a very vernacular, everyday waste. ) From there, we split the class in 2 groups and with tape they kids started to build. Here's some of the photos!

marshmallows and sticks

2009-06-29T00:37:00.001-07:00

So we learned a little about Bucky and started to build. Our materials- marshmallows and toothpicks. Here's the results:

olpc... old video

2009-06-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

the presentation

2009-06-03T02:41:00.001-07:00

Here are the board and the drawings from our submission.

simple measures for big changes

2009-06-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

One Laptop Per Child originally started for children in developing countries. They have been developing a low cost lap top for revolutionize the education of the world's children. I did not say how we would educate because children can teach each other. The child's environment is also a teacher. The OLPC most recently have designed the XO and now the XO-2. Their mission is to provide educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning. These laptops were designed with the real world in mind, considering everything from extreme environmental conditions such as high heat and humidity, to technological issues such as local language support. As a result, the XO laptop is extremely durable, brilliantly functional, energy-efficient, responsive, and fun. Part of our design for the classroom of the future calls for these instruments to be distributed to the students. The XO-2 shown above can be used in 3 modes:

Book mode - the handbook is used as a notebook or book reader, and held with its hinge vertical.
Laptop mode - the "lower" (right hand) display of the handbook displays a keyboard, leaving the upper display for application windows.
Tablet mode - when flat, the handbook provides a surface for drawing, writing, and games.

The applications on the current XO are very thorough as it is now. Here are all the activities:

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Help: Documentation and Help for the XO

Download: Help (latest) (v.10)

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Browse: Web browser based on xulrunner

Download: Browse (8.2) (v.102)

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Read: Book/PDF reader

Download: Read (8.2) (v.56)

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Write: Word processor

Download: Write (latest) (v.60)

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Paint (Oficina): Simple paint activity

Download: Paint (latest) (v.23)

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Record: Still, video, and audio capture

Download: Record (8.2) (v.59)

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TamTamJam: Music composition and synthesis.
Tamtam has four separate activities : TamTam Jam, Edit, Synthlab, and Mini.

Download: TamTamJam (latest) (v.51)

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TamTamEdit: Music composition and synthesis.
See also TamTam Synthlab and Mini.

Download: TamTamEdit (latest) (v.50)

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TamTamSynthLab: Music composition and synthesis.
See also TamTam Mini.

Download: TamTamSynthLab (latest) (v.51)

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TamTamMini: A mini TamTamJam.

Download: TamTamMini (latest) (v.49)

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Chat: Text chat

Download: Chat (8.2) (v.48)

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Pippy: Python Programming language/environment

Download: Pippy (latest) (v.30)

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Etoys: Learning / programming / authoring environment

Download: Etoys (8.2) (v.94)

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Turtle Art: Pseudo-Logo graphical programming language

Download: Turtle Art (latest) (v.10)

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Calculate: Basic calculator

Download: Calculate (latest) (v.25)

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Measure: Oscilloscope and Data Logging

Download: Measure (latest) (v.21)

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Distance: Measure distance between two laptops

Download: Distance (latest) (v.14)

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Memorize: A game about finding matching pairs

Download: Memorize (latest) (v.28)

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Implode: Logic game

Download: Implode (latest) (v.5)

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Maze: Maze game

Download: Maze (latest) (v.6)

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Moon: Moon phase viewer, includes Lunar phase information, eclipse data, and various display options.

Download: Moon (latest) (v.10)

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Ruler: Graphical cm/mm ruler and grids to take measurements of lengths and angles of objects the size of XO laptop screen

Download: Ruler (latest) (v.3)

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Scratch: An easy-to-learn, multimedia programming language. Snap together colorful command blocks to create interactive animations, stories, and games, then share your creatiions on the Scratch website.

Download: Scratch (latest) (v.12)

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Speak: An animated face that speaks whatever you type

Download: Speak (latest) (v.9)

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Wiki Browse: Offline English Wikipedia snapshot

Download: WikiBrowse English (latest) (v.4)

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Terminal: An activity version of the Sugar terminal

Download: Terminal (8.2) (v.18)

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Log: An activity version of the Sugar logging tool

Download: Log (latest) (v.16)

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Analyze: An activity version of the Sugar analyze tool

Download

the narrative.

2009-06-01T16:24:00.000-07:00

Based on a month long collaboration with the sixth grade class of struggling middle school with low performance statistics in a rough urban neighborhood, this design presents the collective predictions and prescribes suggestions for a better learning environment, directly from those who hunger for the betterment of their future. The classroom of the future needs to be an environment which perpetuates active symbiosis; a place where students are teachers, teachers are students, the space is a teacher, and the space is a learner. Spaces need to be smarter as the students will teach the classroom how to better appropriate itself to them. Without a doubt, technology needs to be more efficiently infused with the learning process. Let's start with the immediate experience. In our design, the XO2 Laptop by One Laptop Per Child is available to each student in the class. Working with their software, Sugar, as well as Windows, the students are able to integrate themselves with the lesson plans via the technology.Being a few inches away from the material as it appears on the screen, instead of squinting from the back of a classroom to read the chalk board, students can remain engaged and intellectually stimulated throughout the lesson while having the liberty to posit their own contributions to the lesson through the same technology. This also cuts down on the costs and waste of paper handouts. Students can turn in there homework electronically to maximize efficiency. The laptops will all be connected to a live feed or chat room set up that is displayed on a Smart Board at the main focal space of the room where their work can be displayed instantly to each other, connecting each student in the classroom and unifying them in the material while promoting intellectual diversity by exposing them to the various opinions of their peers. The children will also have ear phones, allowing them to listen in when podcasts are integrated into the curriculum. Wireless Internet is a consistent and necessary amenity for the students. By maximizing the educational potential of these existing conditions, teachers can simultaneously collaborate with classes around the world and provide the opportunity for students to discus and learn about other cultures first hand from fellow students around the world. If the laptops are unavailable, the integration of cell phones and social networking services such as Twitter or Ning can also introduced into the curriculum to act in a similar capacity. With the cell phone, the student can text message their answers or questions to display them at the front of the room. If a Smart Board is out of the budget, a projector attached to the teacher's laptop can fill its role. This promotes group learning from everyday actions that an educator might find to be traditional distractions. If the student is apt to text messaging about social happenings, then they would also be apt to text message about their answer to a question posed the board. This promotes healthy intellectual discourse and does not deter students from learning but rather encourages the use of everyday, attainable technology in their learning environment in a similar capacity to the technology's use in the professional world of which these students hope to one day be productive members. Due to the nomadic nature of laptops and other hand held communication devices, the classroom lends itself as a flux of striated and smooth spaces. All spaces are activated by the inhabitant's (students' and or teacher's) presence and are re-arrangeable and modular.

The space temps to appeal to all types of learners: the visual, auditory, kinesthetic. There is a spectrum of place where the students learn, relaxed space to rigid space. Relaxed space has beanbag chairs or lightweight couches that can be moved for group or individual work. This area, or the break out space, is a place where students can feel at home in the classroom. The beanbag chairs are constructed out of recycled materials as are most of the objects in the space. If local materials are more economical and sustainable, they will be employed into the classroom. The break out space is also acoustically insulated so that students can come and study and read to stimulate themselves and to erase the stigma of "boredom" in the classroom. Boredom is a frequent complaint of students in the classroom. From existing in a media overload culture, it is hard for most to concentrate without multiple stimuli. The students are not necessarily afflicted with Attention Deficiency but instead simply require multiple stimuli to concentrate, absorb, and question the information they are intellectually ingesting. Carpet from recycled materials defines the space as well as brings a sense of homeyness to it, as well as a hearth or fireplace for the students to congregate around. A small satellite library with physical books chosen by the students and access to digital libraries and A Smart Table will also help to amalgamate the intellectual and informal cues of the space. The rigid space is similar to a traditional classroom setup with desks and chairs yet the desks are table units with at least two students to a unit. Each student has a partner to collaborate with throughout the term. The tables can then be combined to make a classroom in the round for better discussions or even larger groups. Group learning encourages participation for living in a global society with the understanding that multiple perceptions and actions affect others. An area for recycling and sustainable energies in action encourages students to learn and live with an ecological conscious. So far all of the above can easily be included in a retrofitting project at an existing school.

The classroom needs to be integrated with natural elements to inspire the students with real life as well as digital influences. Opening to a classroom-specific outdoor space with access to an edible garden or edible green wall as a product of the space allowance will add to the curriculum and nutrition of the students. The incorporation of a water element with living fish that are the responsibility of the students lends itself to hands on science explorations and lessons. For the truly ambitious school that is dealing with overcrowding, organic and living construction can alleviate the use of the "temporary classroom." By using controlled cultured plant growth, the skin of the classroom is living and changing. The structure of this growth of living materials such as native or non-invasive trees or shrubbery uses a prefabricated system to direct its form. The possibility of this plant as a nutrient supplier, aka an apple or a fig tree, offers healthier strategies for the student suggested snack and soda machines. A sitting area outside with a natural moss or grass lends itself as the setting of an outdoor classroom. Composting and water harvesting are also part of the outdoor curriculum. The school, if not the classroom itself, will obtain part of its energy from solar panels and insulate itself with inhabitable green roofs.

As per request of the students, the classroom should have direct access to the restrooms with efficient Grey water toilets. The main reason for this was that other students use their opportunity to go to the restroom to skip class and socialize. With this program shift of restrooms reintroduced into the classroom program, the area of the hallway outside the classroom is not longer just a through space and can then be augmented with other small niches for breakaway and socializing areas. Socialization does not have to be frowned upon and should be thought as part of the curriculum. Thus socializing will not be seen as a distraction from learning but a method of learning itself. Another important factor is the introduction of teacher-specific space. At the end of the day, the teacher is the one encouraging and inspiring the students to try harder. Teachers also deserve better spaces and their own breakout rooms and an inviting teacher lounge that is not just a dark room with few chairs and a microwave. An overall design motive is to have as much daylight as possible with out over heating the space. Larger windows and glass garage doors can be added to existing walls. When applicable, light wells to the sky similar to James Turrell's Sky Space pieces can leak sunlight from above. Shading and water protection is also provided. Other than day lighting there are low hanging LED lights equipped with proximity sensors so that when a student is near or below it will turn on.

All in all, the classroom of the future should be comfortable and a place that is more attractive and safe than the streets. School can be a fantastical place where the walls are filled with living plants instead of bars. They have the power to provoke the minds of the students and cultivate their ideas, but only if the space is inviting and receptive to creativity and cooperation. The space has to allow for itself to be occupied or claimed by that group of students and reclaimed by the next. The classroom cannot deny its previous history by being sterile but can celebrate learning as a compilation. The students requested clean spaces but clean does not have to mean sterile. Due to the context of the urban school, a graffiti wall should be placed in each classroom where students have permission to tag on designated areas. Graffiti will be seen as art and not as an act of vandalism. Thus, the classroom needs to reflect the community in which it exists while creating an intellectually stimulating and safe community within itself.

coming to the end

2009-05-30T04:12:00.001-07:00

As the competition is due on monday, I am wrapping everything up on my end. Here are some of the points that the teacher gave for improvement to the learning environment.

ok you asked me to email you ideas so here they are. i think we should incorporate (not my own ideas):

1. technology: computer lab

2. lighting

3. colors

4. green: compost, all types of recycling, buildings made with recycled materials, grey water recycling, student garden (a cooking and gardening class incorporated), solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal heating and air conditioning, natural lighting, water harvesting, organic food in cafeteria, ways to reduce paper that we pass out to kids/xerox?

6. fancy gym, library, auditorium and meeting spaces

7. comforts for a teacher because a tired teacher is a cranky, mean, no-more-energy-left-to-teach teacher (BIG problem at our school)

8. a more inviting teacher lounge to encourage collaboration in a school culture (a problem for most schools) of isolation in ur closed-door classroom

goals:

1. try to appeal to all types of learners (the five: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc)

2. provide hands-on learning (projects, experiment resources and areas)

3. provide stimulating & out of the ordinary (community clean-up could be an elective on top of the state-mandated grade-level curriculum, for ex) electives for students (particularly un-engaged middle schoolers to enjoy coming ot school for)

4. other concerns: safety, nutrition, comfort

5. creating ownership and pride of their school in students

6. FOCUS ON THE LOCAL: catering to OUR kids and their interests and concerns and priorities validates their culture and actually reaches them--unlike we are doign now--they HATE school!

7. positive, enjoyable environment

BUT, like i said, those are not unique ideas. i compiled them from other sources really. i think the way to really stand out is to focus on the fact that our school is LOW INCOME. so let's incorporate all above, but spend the most time on our low income issues (no money, no education, high crime, high pregnancy/drop out):

1. bars on the windows

2. how to make kids feel more safe. how to deal with lock-downs

3. on-school police office but no metal detectors?

4. supplies for kids supplied by school

5. there are high number of behavior and emotionally-disturbed kids (foster, abused, etc) who have trouble focusing (in rich communities they give them aderol), so having cubicles/quiet corners/more separated space for concentration than just having to sit in rows and no other way to learn

6. build parent classrooms for mandatory classes for parents to teach them how they MUST regulate their students' homework, etc

7. build a girls' center to foster strong women who will not drop out or get pregnant... or at least know that option

8. because they know it's south central and it's ugly and not the fanciest school, they treat it that way. if we could make it the most beautiful thing in the community with lots of tress and flowers and murals and GRASS (etc?), it would be a treated as a special place to step foot and behavior problems (huge in low income) would eliminate. in this regard, there should be a legal area for graffiti as art--such an obvious way to eliminate our graffiti all over buildings and classrooms at this school. in this way, incorporating OUR population's interests instead of applying a uniform formula to all LAUSD schools. FOCUS ON THE LOCAL (should really be the center of our whole project). this would be building structures for skateboarding, break dancing area, hip hop dj and dancing area, graf wall.

10. reaching the students means giving them what they want. we eliminated all electives in public schools when we realized how low their english and math was. let's keep the focus on english and math because how low they are will be a huge burden on them, but also incorporate at least ONE hour a day to electives to keep them engaged. this would be re-instating wood shop, cooking, and other vocational type stuff (because focusing the this local means vocational skills not just academic--they usually go to trade tech college if any college). but also pushing and expanding culture and opportunities with not just ambitious academic standards but also electives new to them like band/orchestra, drama, etc.

In the year 2025...

2009-05-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Mae Jemison is an astronaut, a doctor, an art collector, a dancer, and pretty much an amazing person. Her talk on TED is just amazing. We can't just teach art or science. They are completely integrated. Teaching architecture to kids is a good balance of both.

LOUNGE learning

2009-05-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

As you can see in the post below, most of the kids wanted a lounge space for learning. This High school in Ørestad in Denmark by 3XN is one of the first to fulfill new educational visions regarding subjects, organization and teaching systems.
Communication, interaction and synergy are the key issues behind the design of the space. Interpretation of openness and flexibility regarding team sizes, varying from the individual over groups to classes and assemblies opens up to new collective learning. It also reflects international tendencies aiming at achieving a more dynamic and life-like studying environment and introducing information technology (aka laptops/cell phones/ipods) as a main tool. This also instigates and enforces the students’ abilities gradually to take responsibility for own learning, being able to work in teams as well as working individually.
This is by far one of the most engaging schools I have ever seen.

What would you like the future class room to be?

2009-05-04T19:25:00.000-07:00

Here are the papers that the kids drew when they were asked to show what the classroom of the future to be.

the future: from 6th grade and beyond!

2009-05-01T21:14:00.000-07:00

The blog is now going to shift from just a research to more project base. The work with JCJ and Push is complete and I am now going to use this as a forum for the projection of my work and my partners' work on the Classroom of the Future Competition by the Open Architecture Network. My partners are highly experienced and extremely bright. I am working with Ms. Kathleen Miles 6th grade class at 6th Period.The school is George Washington Carver Middle School in South Central, LA. These kids are amazing. Below is the existing classroom.
The first day of class with them was thursday. I asked "What is Architecture?" right off the bat. Here are the answers they kids gave me::
-designing things in your mind for people
-building stuff
- art/ designing stuff
- sketching what you want to design
-thinging about what you're going to make
- designing your ideas and places and new things
- create stuff
- using your imagination and drawing on walls
- building something different
- drawing something and people make it
- brainstorming and thinking about the future

What great definitions of architecture! If only architects used these more often. Ms. Miles and I then had the kids draw and write where they liked to study or learn and what would help them learn more. I have to scan the drawings in but here is a quick collage I made from some of their suggestions.
Today we worked on measurements. We will probably continue for a few more classes. We also started to draw the plan of the school. I will try to get the kids blogs to link to them on here. Like I said, they are just remarkable.

Learning at Jet Speed?

2009-04-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

Let's talk about recycling our environments for the future. What an exciting space to be learning in? What a great space to let the minds of our future fly off into the clouds of their imaginations?! The Kingsland Primary School just got the ticket to ride!
This 82ft-long commercial airliner is now the UK's and clearly the worlds first plane classroom for school pupils. Originally a commuter plane, this Short 360 was decommissioned after thousands of hours of flying businessmen to Ireland and Spain. Instead of finding its days rotting in a graveyard, it has taken its final landing to be recycled as a classroom. The head teacher said " We wanted an outside classroom and talked to the children about the kind of space they wanted and they came up with the idea of a plane themselves so we thought we would see how we could go about buying one."

There is a new rise in redesigning the portable classroom. I guess it was above our heads all along. It was purchased for less than £20,000 – half the price of a boring portable box classroom which we all dislike. The cockpit will be filled with whiteboards, desks and laptops as to make it a user-friendly learning space for a class of 30 pupils for a geography class. How perfect? Flying right into the future. Souce1: Daily Mail. Source2: Treehugger.

Open Source Learning

2009-03-19T01:21:00.000-07:00

Open Source learning. Knowledge Ecosystem. Be your own educational dj! Richard Baraniuk is a professor at Rice University professor. Baraniuk has a giant vision: to create a free global online education system that puts the power of creation and collaboration in the hands of teachers worldwide. The realization of this vision is via Connexions, a website that allows teachers to quickly "create, rip, mix and burn" coursework -- without fear of copyright violations.

Connexions' open-source system cuts out the textbook, giving teachers the opportunity to share course materials, modify existing work and disseminate it to their students. This is all for free, thanks to Creative Commons licensing. Text books are price and become a burden to the student. You can't buy the book you can't get the info. This could become a powerful force in leveling the education playing field. Everyone has access to this as long as they have access to the internet. Currently Connexions encompasses hundreds of online courses and is used by a million people worldwide. Baraniuk's virtual educational system is revolutionizing the way people teach and learn. How can our architecture be responsive to this as well?

Hyperlinked text books. This type of learning will help to show the connected learning which Ken Robinson's was talking about. It's an educational mash-up in your brain. Let's allow the kids to mix it themselves and spit it out so they understand it better.

Kids say the darndest things...

2009-03-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

Sir Ken Robinson is a brilliant British author who has published many books some of which entitled- Learning Through Drama, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (The Robinson Report) , and his recent book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything. I totally agree with his mentality. Education should include everything. We can just focus on math and English and science and disregard everything else. Math is in EVERYTHING. Teaching children such would only help them learn. Same thing with science and English. You need to learn how to COMMUNICATE. English is part of that, so is art, so is dance. Theater is English class.
Some of the points in this talk that I'd like to highlight are the following::
All kids have tremendous talent and we squander them pretty ruthlessly.
Creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same urgency.
We may not see this future but our children will and its our job to help them make something of it.

We have to focus on interactive learning and interactive teaching. How do we then design for these spaces for amalgamated learning lets say. You have to find what you like and go for it. But where is the platform for children to find their niche and then follow it to the ends of the earth.
We really have to not direct children but help them to find out what it is inside them that they can do.

you are the future

2009-03-17T23:44:00.000-07:00

I am working on a research project for Push Architecture and JCJ Architecture based on the LAUSD system. Having all this new knowledge, I thought why not have a blog about this and have this info in a concentrated form with my own criticisms of course. I will also try to get some teachers' point of views. I am looking at public/charter/private schools but really focusing on the potential of change in public and charter because they are free. We have to help our youth learn that they are brilliant and they can do anything and make anything. How can the space help reveal self confidence and social comfort? How can the space be a place for Project Based Learning?