Meeting Notes - Apr 20, 2017

Agenda

Legend:

Assignment: highlight indicates assignment
Recommendations: italics

Attendance:

Virtual Meeting via email

Reports

Chair (Marlo):

Scott (Tech support):

Teaching Centre:

Ken:

Items for Action

Flexible Learning Space Proposal

A number of members of the committee have indicated that they will not be able to make the meeting next Friday - April 28. Given the nature of the meeting agenda, I think we can cancel this meeting and accomplish it via email. Before next Friday read the 2 proposals from Lorraine (in the last email) and reply to the committee listserv or to me directly with your thoughts about whether we should support these proposals.

In regards to the update on the room renovations (turning TH 341into a flexible teaching/learning space), we met with representatives from Steelcase (RGO) and Samsung and discussed our initial ideas about thread technology (power under the carpet), Mediascapes (large mobile TVs), tables and chairs on wheels, large screen displays and interactive displays, etc. They mentioned a couple of interesting technologies that we were not aware of. One technology is to have TVs act as a whiteboards - probably adds to the price but worth exploring further. The other was “puck” technology. They had problems describing this but it may be a way to share screens with others in a relatively low-cost way (wirelessly) and may be a flexible way for an instructor, presenter or student group to share their screen with multiple screens simultaneously or with multiple devices. This sounded very intriguing and could potentially reduce a huge cost associated with sharing displays through traditional means (hardwire and switching technologies). One potential problem with the puck technology is the strictness of the University’s IT department on regulating internal networks working through their network ...and this could be such a scenario; IT policies this actively because of security issues. We will have to explore that further.

Next Steps:
provide Steelcase (RGO - Calgary) with floor plans for TH 341 (Scott)
Steelcase will provide us with tentative budget options
take a field trip to Calgary to see the furniture and technologies first-hand
determination of best options
forward the committee’s recommendation to the Dean.
One of the problems with this plan is that if the University Maintenance department has a significant role, it may be 6-8 months before we can proceed (that seems to be the current wait time in the queue (shared with me from Bernie Wirzba). Unfortunately, at this point, we don’t have a good sense for how that will play out until we know what we are doing.

Let me know if you have any questions. I will inform you when we arrange the Calgary field trip and you are welcome to participate if you want (I will share the results of that regardless).

Have a good day.

Marlo Steed
Chair, Educational Technology Committee
Faculty of Education

Resources