Lipstick on the gorilla

Adam Wood presents a healthy dose of provocation in his article about the current state of education architecture in Australia.

https://www.aare.edu.au/blog/?p=3821
Adam Wood

The idea that resonated with me the most is the “faddishness of school design” – our fascination with the image of new school architecture.

New school designs also risk following the current trend for ‘Instagrammable’ architecture, buildings that look impressive from the outside but that disappoint inside to the point of being dysfunctional. The big challenge for Australia is to resist the faddishness of school design so problematic internationally, and focus on spaces that are genuinely useful and meaningful for students and teachers.

When developing a set of options for school design, a team researches a collection of visual precedents. These are photos of real examples of room layouts, facades, furniture and surface finishes. At there worst, they are merely a set of images dredged from the internet, with no story. These images are then used to justify to a client any design choices. What we are often missing is the narrative of the user experience.

Decision makers (clients) are often in a situation with high-investment, high stakes, short timelines and marketing pressure for enrolment. The user experience is something much harder to sell and to hook into, even if it is the core reason for a new building. The user experience is less “instagrammable.”

Our students deserve better than simply “that looks good”. Design choices can be articulated in a broader way than simply using imagery. Technology is providing an amazing array of tools to tell the story of new learning spaces.

We can create a rich set of user experience precedents that are complemented by the stock imagery so commonly lauded over. To create “genuinely useful and meaningful spaces” for teachers and learners we have to use narrative, virtualisation and imagery.

The narratives can also serve as the fixed points we use to evaluate the success of educational architecture.

  • How have we been able to bring to life these fictional accounts?
  • How close to reality were our design stories?
  • How do the user experiences compare after one, three, six and twelve months of post-occupancy?

Adam links out from his article to an interview with Adrian Leaman, who runs Building Use Studies and leads a UK educational charity the Usable Buildings Trust, who explains,

In post-occupancy evaluations, we often find that the results for the “Image” variable are much better than almost all the others. The occupants will tell you “It looks good, but it does not work well”. Lipstick on the gorilla was the way one designer described it! A pretty building but thermally it’s horrible, the ventilation’s terrible, the lighting is so-so, it’s very noisy, people want to escape from it and so on. The discourse about architecture and schools is very superficial. There is a reluctance for designers to re-visit buildings to see how they really work, and what people really think about them.

Here are some ideas to broaden the discourse and for us all to consider when we are involved in these projects.

  1. Observe the time and space of teaching and learning. Immerse your self in teaching and learning, carefully observe how a learning space functions, and how the users make it work for them. Explore the patterns you notice across multiple groups.
  2. Articulate what your learning community values the most. Share a set of principles about teaching and learning. Explain the hopes and dreams you have for the students in your community. As Ira Socol asks: “What do you want your children to be?”
  3. Question the story behind the imagery. Spend time exploring the stories portrayed in the images used in the project documentation. Question and probe for the story of the user experience. Don’t settle for “these are just some examples” – example of what experience? How do they articulate the experience we are striving to create?
  4. Create user experience precedents. Use narrative, imagery and virtual simulations to articulate design ideas. Capture case studies of existing user experience in the school to use as points of evaluation further into the process.
  5. Establish a framework for evaluation. Commit to pre- and post-occupancy long term, using the existing spaces and user experiences as a baseline. It is often a long road, so ensure it is invested in and referenced throughout the process by all stakeholders.

Image by Ozgu Ozden

“Stuff”, Stuffing and Japanese Craftmanship :: T Minus 7 Days

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With seven days to go until we fly out of the UK for the last time, I thought I would spend some time writing about the lead up to our departure. I suspect there will be some adventures when we arrive which might also merit a blog post or two.

I have been slowly tracking the departure date on my calendar as it looms closer. At first it wasn’t visible, months off. But slowly, week by week it has been approaching and now I see it, right there. Next Wednesday afternoon.

With some friends getting the ball rolling we have been slowly clearing any of our remaining possessions before we leave. You see in mid October we sent just about everything we own to Melbourne on a ship and so are currently living with our second string of “stuff”.

Actually it has been amazingly liberating to live without being surrounded by lots of “stuff”. Everything that we are using or is still in the house will be sold, given away or indeed part of many tip runs to come.

I suppose such a move to send our belongings to another country forces you to look around yourself, to say what does all this “stuff” really mean to us? We are currently living with the rejects. It is an awkward relationship. A temporary one at best. With many of the sad mixture of items who didn’t make the boat, earmarked for the charity shop. When you surround yourself with “stuff” that you no longer have any investment in, no monetary value of note, certainly no sentimentality involved, you see those whom you love with a lucid glow that is different. Not new, just different.

It all started when we sold our house and moved into a rental property back in September. I loved that house and didn’t see myself ever moving, why would I? But when faced with a new day, that brings about new opportunities, things simply change.

Christmas has been lovely as usual and although there has been some muted generosity, due to luggage weight allowances, we have had a lovely time together with family.

Admittedly carving the turkey was not with my usual knives with their “distinctive one piece, molybdenum/vanadium stainless steel design” or their Japanese heritage or indeed the striking balance and craftsmanship you register with every touch. In fact it was with a bread knife from Tesco’s – but you know the turkey still tasted the same. Maybe better.

Pic: Christmas 2012 by Mike_fleming (Attribution-ShareAlike License)

A new chapter down under

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There were two distinct moments when my mind was made up. The first was during a languid time spent walking along Manly beach in Sydney, looking down at my feet as the warm water rolled in and sucked out again. Watching my prints scrubbed free from the sand. I knew then.

Although in all truth I didn’t need much more convincing, I also remember being on the beach at Port Willunga just south of Adelaide. The sun seemed to be lingering on the Southern Ocean horizon, as it dipped and I watched the only surfer for miles, I clearly remember thinking that Australia was going to play a part in my future.

I have been lucky enough to travel back to Australia a handful of times over the last few years with Ewan for our NoTosh work. The trips have always been a great deal of fun and filled with laughter. We have worked in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Great memories.

And yet I still always remember those moments on the beaches of Sydney and Adelaide – all in all it is an easy decision.

On January 3rd we fly out of the UK to start a new chapter in our life in Melbourne. I would not be telling the truth if I didn’t say I was nervous and slightly anxious about it all. But I am also really excited, open minded and completely committed to what comes next for my family and for NoTosh.

No doubt we could have convinced ourselves it was not the right time, or that we will leave it a few years. But sometimes you just have to get on with it and step away from those who just say “wouldn’t it be nice if…”

I am looking forward to feeling the sand between my toes again.

Australian Postcards Please!

1923704675 7f1aab4c0cWe are hoping to connect with lots of different schools right across Australia for our topic work this term.

This will help our children to really understand what life is like today for their peers throughout Australia.

But for an old fashioned pen-pal style idea we welcome your postcards, because after all there is still something special about receiving mail – the physical kind!

If you are an Australian teacher or educator we would love to have you and your class send us a card. The postcard could be about your town, city or state or even a famous landmark you are close to.

We have two classes doing the Australia topic so if you could please send 2 cards one addressed to Mr Barrett’s Class and the other to Mrs Bartholomew’s Class.

John Davies Primary School
Barker Street,
Huthwaite,
Sutton-in-Ashfield,
Nottinghamshire,
England.
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As we gather your cards we will photograph them and update your location on a Google Map. Don’t forget to add your class blog address if you have one – our Year 5/6 classes will be starting their own soon.

Please let us know if you can help and we look forward to seeing your cards in the post!

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Pic: Wish You Were Here by H4NUM4N


Looking Back

The sun will soon be rising on 2010 and I just wanted to look back at a hugely eventful year for me personally. Here are some of the things that have been memorable.

Last Christmas we spent our holidays in Australia. It was an amazing trip for me and I would dearly love to return to that part of the world, perhaps on a more permanent basis. When we arrived in Sydney our apartment was not going to be open until later in the day. We had landed about 8am and the prospects of entertaining a 2 year old with all of our luggage still in tow was going to be tricky. But to our rescue came Judy O’Connell and Dean Groom, both of whom I had known from our various online networks but had never met before. Judy kindly picked us up from the airport and we went back to her house where we were able to unwind for a little bit. Dean picked us up later and took us on to our apartment in Manly. I am so grateful for that amazing gesture of kindness – it got our trip off to a great start and illustrates the trust that can be developed through online connections.

TMNEL Prezi

The TeachMeet community has had an incredible 2009 and I have been fortunate enough to have been to five events in person. The BETT show TeachMeet began the year and I was just amazed by the scale of things and the huge interest from the commercial sector. In May Stuart Sutherland and I organised and ran the first TeachMeet in the Midlands, hosted by the National College for School Leadership. It was incredible to be part of the full organisation and we are hoping to hold another in 2010. I was delighted to be invited to do a mini-note at TeachMeet North East London and also to organise TeachMeet Channel 4 to bookend their education conference. In September I was able to return to the Scottish Learning Festival and another TeachMeet held in the BBC Scotland building. Along with popping into various Flashmeetings I also attended Dai Barnes and Doug Belshaw’s hugely successful EdTechRoundup TeachMeet which was held online. This added another amazing dimension to this incredible professional development event. With Stuart Ridout, I am currently organising TeachMeet Bett 2010 as well as TeachMeet Takeover – it looks like it should kick off another inspiring year of grass roots professional development.

When you get an invitation from royalty to a conference in another country you can be excused for being a little sceptical. But the inaugural World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Qatar was no joke. I was delighted to be included in only 1000 of the invited delegates from all over the world. A handful of edubloggers were invited but not many actually attended. It was a privilege to represent primary school teachers from the UK and be part of the wider discussions. Although the word “innovation” was in the conference name, little was done to “walk the walk” in terms of the communication processes used. That said, I blogged and tweeted my way through the event to encourage remarks and comment from a wider audience. I hope that if there is a 2010 event that more will be done to encourage delegates to share what they experience with a world audience.

This time next year I will have spent a term in a new job! After a bit of grumbling I stumbled upon a Deputy Head Teacher job that I believed would be a great opportunity. I spent the return flight from Qatar writing the letter, which got me an interview. The day and a half interview was a great challenge and I was thrilled to be offered the job. I will be starting as Deputy Head Teacher in the Summer term. I have been in my current post for about 8 years and I have been through some great times, but it has long been time for me to move on and face a new challenge. As part of the interview I asked readers of this blog and followers on Twitter to help with some testimonials. I printed them off and found a moment in the formal interview to hand them out to the panel – it was an amazing set of references and I have no doubt helped secure the job. Thankyou to everyone who contributed to the 20,000 character job reference.
Touching the surface

During 2009 I continued my involvement with multi-touch technology in the classroom. At BETT in January I met with representatives from SMART and organised an early trial of the SMART Table in my classroom. After working with it I felt it’s capacity to impact on learning was limited. Sadly the trial was abruptly ended, in my opinion due to an honest and frank account of my experiences I blogged about. Although critical of the SMART Table I was committed to helping SMART improve and develop it as it would directly benefit the wider multi-touch educational technology field. But, alas, they prevented that by taking it away and they did it, in my opinion, to limit the damage caused by my negative posts. I am now a member of the SynergyNet steering group at Durham University who are developing a multi-touch learning project, and met in November of this year for the first time. The developments at Durham are really exciting: multi-touch classrooms, networked tables able to pass media between them and a general focus on the pedagogies that underpin multi-touch enhanced learning.

This academic year we have been doing shorter half-termly topics in Year 5. We have found that although shorter, they are more focused. The first one was Sealife. Built around and inspired by the Nintendo Wii game Endless Ocean. It was a pleasure to work with the children during the 7 weeks as we explored, discovered and learned together. Using an open ended game to drive a topic was amazing to work with and the children were completely engaged and enjoyed every moment.

Maths Maps has been a long time in the making. Years ago I made some Google Earth resources that used the satellite imagery to structure maths activities. With the development of Google Maps and the ability to now collaborate on a map as if it is a document, such as a Google Document, I have been able to realise what I had always imagined with these resources. Each Maths Map is a maths topic with activities located on real life objects visible in the satellite imagery layer of Google Maps. In total the 3 current maps have been viewed 85,000 times, but more importantly the idea has inspired other teachers to begin using Google Maps to produce engaging content for their learners.

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This year I finally made the switch to a self hosted blog. With the nudging of Doug Belshaw I bought some space and installed WordPress, transferred everything from my old blog and have been really happy here in my new home. The most obvious advantage is the personalisation that you can achieve with your own space. There is no limit or other person choosing what you can add or not. You are free to be as creative with your space as you are with what you write. I was pleased to have been nominated by my peers for 6 different Edublog Awards categories this year, thankyou to all those who wrote such kind words in their nomination posts.

I just tweeted about a couple of updates to two different “Interesting Ways” presentations. The IWB resource was started in November 2007 and now there are about 30 different crowd-sourced resources with a huge amount of shared expertise. I prefer not to be too tool-centric, nor do I like the formulaic “100 Awesome things to do with a Cabbage” sort of posts that have littered education blogging recently. In my opinion what sets the Interesting Ways resources apart is that (a) they all begin at zero, they are put out there not as a perfectly formed multiple of 10 lists and (b) they are built by everyone, the crowd, educators explaining and sharing their experiences. They are authored by the community and I feel lucky to be in the position to keep encouraging them along.

A memorable year in lots of different ways and Christmas at home this year has been made really special as my 3 year old son’s excitement has built to a feverish crescendo. I have been able to share in some of that too. I wonder what 2010 will bring? I am looking forward to it already. I wish you all the best for 2010 and hope you continue to join me.