Durham University, Techno-Café [CETL for Active Learning In Computing]
| Contact Details: | E L Burd, liz.burd@durham.ac.uk For photos of Techno-Café go to www.durham.ac.uk/alic/technocafe/ |
| Type of Project: | A refurbishment to create a Techno-Café as a prototype for a future development in a new build. |
| Start/End Date: | December 2005 - January 2006 (a 6-8 week timeframe over the Christmas vacation). |
What Are Your Top Tips..
...For a successful new build? For embedding IT? For installing technology?
The current style of lab is coming to a point where very soon it will be obsolete. Most students come with better facilities at home than we are able to provide en masse in a University setting.
The number of students with portable facilities will increase but there will always be something that prevents students, unless its absolutely necessary, wanting to carry around what is in effect heavy and bulky equipment. So there will be a greater prominence of PDAs and mobile phones. Ultimately the mobile phone will be the central resource for communication and storing work.
Universities will be required to provide two or three main facilities. One is communications whereby devices can talk easily to the University networking facilities. Another is some facility where you can have access to a keyboard or a device which could record speech as you couldn't enter an essay using a mobile phone. Students will also need large screens to review and proof read material in an effective way. Finally there will be a need for very specialist printing equipment such as geologists wanting to print out large scale maps.
Needs will become highly focused into facilities that allow plugging into the network, plugging into electricity, recharging of small mobile devices and large scale printing and reviewing facilities. Rather than providing cramped conditions institutions should think about spending less on the actual technology and more on the environment and really supporting the use of an individuals' equipment
