Connected Classrooms

A hands-on design-build course exploring distance learning technologies.

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Brief

Design Brief

Goal: A ‘kit in a bag’ for collaborative distance learning

Your objective is to:

Design and develop a low cost, lightweight, quick to deploy, portable infrastructure that can be used in any teaching setting without pre-existing / embedded technologies for distance learning and training. It should be easy to use, quick to deploy and setup and can be retrofitted into existing spaces.

Stakeholders: CMU and Emirates Airlines

  1. CMU Case: To be able to take a studio/design-build class from any one of CMU’s 7 global campus locations
  2. Emirates Case: Creating globally dispersed classrooms as a socially connected environment for crew and staff training.

We will use CMU as a familiar context to design for; but with a focus to possible extensions in other scenarios, like crew training opportunities for Emirates.

Focus: Supporting Broad to Near Interactions

Distance learning is well explored in the sense of lecture-format classes, but a huge part of educational experiences are up-close and personal. In a studio based environment, sketching, brainstorming, and other peer-to-peer interactions are key. In a training environment, activities like role playing, scenarios and other team building exercises need learns to be in close contact. These are traditionally hard to do in distance learning scenarios.

We want to be able to support these kinds of learning experience better. To do this we’ll need to

  1. Enhance broad scale interactions - giving instructors more than just a video feed; providing richer insight and increasing awareness of how learning interactions and experiences are unfolding in the distributed classroom.
  2. Better understand context - knowing who’s doing what, when and where; using new tools and technologies to understand learners’ location, interaction, experience and engagement.
  3. Enrich close interactions over distances - emulating face-to-face collaboration over distance; enabling remote ‘over-the-shouder’ observation.

Or to put it more succintly, our aim is to have the ‘kit’ seamlessly support and blend instructor-driven and peer-to-peer interactions found in hands-on collaborative classrooms.

Requirement / Assumptions

Our distributed learning solution will be for:

  • shared classrooms that…
  • connect students in more than locations in a learning experience…
  • where there is an instructor in at least one location…. and
  • they will learn from a mix of instructor driven content (lectures, discussion, etc.) and peer-to-peer collaboration (brainstorming, crits, sketching, etc.)

Our distributed learning solution will be:

  • Quick to deploy - out of box setup in under 5 minutes (i.e. pre class); this also includes configuration.
  • Usable - won’t require extensive training to operate
  • Portable - can be stored in a small case or kit for transport between locations (not excessively heavy)

Technologies and Areas for Exploration

  • Video conferencing - making the process seamless, enriching with computer vision, automatic translation, face detection, etc.
  • Wearables - using biometrics to track engaged participation; accelerometers/sensors to get feedback (raised hands, question answering);
  • Nearables/Beacons - localization of learner with space, supporting team formation; delivering content to the space; tracking class enrollment;
  • Web Technologies - new online experiences for collaboration, sharing, participation and social engagement in the learning experience,
  • Custom Hardware - new hardware prototypes, internet appliances which can support in-situ learning.

Organization and Logistics

  • You’ll work in small teams (3-4 people). Teams will be formed to balance skills across envisioning and conceptualization, software and hardware development, design and prototyping, etc.

  • You’re expected to meet at least once a week outside of class as a group.

  • Each group will self-assign roles for the project. It is highly recommended you appoint a project manager in your initial meeting.

  • At least one member of the team will be in Pittsburgh and one member will be in Silicon Valley. This will require you to negotiate remote collaboration in and out of class. Use this as a resource for design/evaluation!

  • You’ll be provided with a base set of technologies for your explorations. Both Pittburgh and Silicon Valley will have the same set of resources.