Traditional schools were designed when the primary mode of teaching was distributive; teachers provided information and students were responsible for memorizing and repeating the information. All classrooms were identical marching down each side of identical corridors.
Every decision we make has an impact on learning. We can guarantee that our students will have safe, secure, and nurturing places in which to learn by making informed decisions based on more than lowest cost. If you don’t have funding to do it all … add to the plus column by improving your educational environments one piece at a time.
Increasing numbers of colleges and universities, however, are adopting more of a change-agent, upstart mentality. Schools such as the University of Rochester, Duke University, and Case Western Reserve University are prime examples of institutions that are finding ways to circumvent the go-slow approach that long has characterized American higher education. The processes and technologies that these institutions develop find their ways into the marketplace as business ventures. And the creation of these technologies leads universities to beef up their own hiring.
As large university systems face tightening budgets, they are restructuring their purchasing operations by consolidating them and leveraging their spending to lower costs. While some university systems such as Indiana University have moved to a complete centralization of purchasing, others have developed other models that allow individual campuses some autonomy over spending decisions.
Educators have been less successful in providing access for American students. Access creates the pathway that makes choice possible. Ideally, education should be a series of seamless transitions between various levels and complexities of learning. What has happened in America, however, is that access has become a fundamental stumbling block for students seeking to learn and to advance themselves.
Old dogs are learning new tricks as adult students return to colleges to enhance their careers or springboard into new ones. However, to attract these dedicated, engaged scholars, there's one question you should definitely not ask.
Virtually everything a typical student would need to do could be done using a web browser. The number of student learning activities requiring a full blown computer with local applications is few and far between, concentrating more in the high school grad
Following the enormous destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and other disasters over the past decade, institutions have placed higher emphasis on disaster recovery and business continuity planning, testing, and execution. Business continuity plans are built on a foundation of processes, people, information, technology — and perhaps most importantly, assumptions. Whatever the level of careful planning now in place, we must continue to reassess all of these elements. And whatever was in place before November 2012, Superstorm Sandy forces a careful, objective, and immediate reconsideration.
As each year passes and a fresh year begins, I like to think through some of the lessons I learned (or re-learned) as a personal and professional growth exercise. I think the theme for 2012 was that those lessons that stick with you are the most painful lessons to learn.
A Building Automation System (BAS) is what makes an intelligent building intelligent in terms of energy usage. From basic to sophisticated, there's clearly a lot that administrators can do to take advantage of building intelligence to transform their environment.
Whatever the grade level or supplier, safety for budding dancers' joints and durability is paramount. Add affordability and versatility -- that is, a system that accommodates a range of movements, routines and dance genres -- and the right floor.
As the second term of Barack Obama’s Presidency begins and the 113th Congress convenes, most Americans wonder whether the two parties and the two branches of government can work together to find common ground and address the numerous critical, salient and important issues facing the nation.
Naturally, when education leaders learn that they have significant gaps in their organization's crisis plans, they want them to be corrected immediately. The problem here is that it can often take six to 18 months to do this in a cost-effective way.
With the importance of higher education on the rise and enrollment continuing to climb, we will continue to need new and upgraded spaces. We will also need to set aside dollars to maintain the new facilities that we build, otherwise our investments will be squandered. Then there are all of those “other” buildings… the ones originally built in the 1920s, added on to in the ’50s, ’70s, ’90s, and so on. The truth is that a majority of our educational facilities in this country are approaching the half-century mark and are in major need of maintenance and repair!
Why the AV industry and not one of the other building systems trades, such as HVAC or electrical integrators? For one reason, AV professionals are widely recognized as early adopters of new technologies. In recent years, there has been a considerable emphasis on ease-of-use and ease-of-operation. In response, AV programmers, consultants, and integrators have developed unique skills for creating intuitive, user-friendly tools and control interfaces. What users and building managers often do not see is that behind the scenes, to create those seamless interfaces, AV professionals must often corral complex systems that don’t normally communicate with one another — and that’s the crux of the challenge when it comes to integrating disparate building systems.
Armstrong Atlantic State University's lab facility gets high marks for a VAV remedy, which provided much-needed quiet and significant energy savings.
Being energy efficient has a lot going for it. Students and faculty appreciate the comfortable environments. Staff members enjoy maintaining and servicing an intelligently controlled building. And everyone can feel good about contributing to a healthy, green future. But at what cost? There is plenty of whizz-bang technology that looks great… until you crunch the numbers. Is a 20-year return on investment too long to wait? Or is the alternative too expensive?
There are many options and factors to consider when selecting the right flooring for dance and performance spaces. For example, what material is best for the types of dance your program teaches, or could teach in order to grow the program in the future? Also, is your structural subfloor sealed, and above, at, or below grade? That matters because an unsealed, below-grade slab can swell or warp your dance floor by drawing up moisture from the ground.
Can security people on an open college campus ensure that a visitor — someone from outside the campus community — doesn’t walk onto campus and begin stealing laptops or, worse, start shooting people? Of course they can’t. Then again, it probably is possible to discourage crime at all levels by presenting a friendly and welcoming yet security-conscious face to visitors.
A plan for maintenance and repair should be an integral part of every school budget, and must not be the item to be cut when money is tight. Not performing routine maintenance costs districts many times over.
K-12 schools have been facing major budget constraints. At the same time, they're tasked with finding new ways to engage students -- AV technology would be one of those ways.