11 Reasons Advanced Technology Classrooms Fail
Over the last two decades, there have been few, if any, academic institutions that have not built new classrooms and integrated advanced classroom technology in them. Many of these undertakings have been successful, in the sense that the faculty, students, and administration thought that the technology was useful, that it worked as expected, and, that both teaching and learning goals were met in the new facilities.
Unfortunately and all too frequently, however, there have been stories of disaster as well. "We spent all this money, and nobody uses the equipment." "Nobody can figure out how to work the controls." "Somebody changed all the settings." "The technology is too complicated, and I don't have the time to figure it out." "The equipment just doesn't work."
It is likely that the vast majority of advanced technology classroom projects succeed in some measure, though far too many fall short of fully meeting the expectations of those who envisioned, funded, and built them. And there are several ways in which advanced technology classrooms can disappoint users.
Unfortunately, many of the seeds of future problems are inadvertently planted during the early planning stages of the classroom design process and in large measure could have been avoided. Here is a list of planning pitfalls to watch out for.
1. The tendency to integrate technology for the sake of creating a Smart classroom, rather than targeting pedagogy and meeting specific instructor teaching requirements.
Too often, models of successful high tech classrooms are replicated without a complete understanding of the drivers that led to the original design in the first place. This mindset fails to recognize that technology is but a small part of overall classroom design and that subtle non tech characteristics--such as room size, shape, furniture, storage, circulation, etc.--also play a significant role in meeting user expectations.
Further, there seems to be the implicit assumption that building a smart classroom can be a goal unto itself. If you build it, it will be used and add value. It will add a competitive advantage to our institution. It will be simple enough so that the faculty can figure out how to use the equipment.
While this last point may be true for a limited number of adventurous teachers who are willing to experiment, the majority of users might not be willing to adapt their teaching styles as needed. For this reason, the special equipment provided in high tech classrooms may be drastically underutilized.
Building advanced technology classrooms, without understanding who will use them or why often leads to disappointing results.
2. Design motivated by the fear of making a mistake, by setting the goal of achieving maximum flexibility, rather than more closely targeting room design with proposed usage.
User representatives providing input for new classroom projects often identify flexibility as the most important requirement. While no one would argue that a range of flexibility is a good and rational design criterion, too often the request emanates from a lack of clarity or vision about how a space will be used.
Targeting flexibility may serve as a convenient way to avoid making hard choices. Unfortunately, demanding a broad range of flexibility at differing ends of the utilization spectrum can often create opposing design goals, the solutions to which foster a result that meets the criteria of the lowest common denominator and fails to satisfy any user requirements adequately.