Category Archives: Bentley CIS

3 Ways to Reconfigure an Old Computer Lab

Bentley CIS, CIS Sandbox, Publications

EdTech magazine published  my article about the making of the CIS Sandbox, and things we considered as we transformed an eleven year-old space into a campus destination for computing. Read it online.

Update: Thanks to EdTech for a framed copy of the article that’s now hanging in the CIS Sandbox.


 

Innovative Teaching

Bentley CIS, Quoted, Teaching, Technology

Bentley provost Mike Page (at right) awarded professors Denise Hanes, Mystica Alexander, Jay Thibodeau, George Fishman, and me Bentley’s Innovation in Teaching Award for 2012 at the faculty meeting this morning.

Innovation in Teaching Winners

My application was for the innovative teaching and learning that happens in the CIS Sandbox. It was an unconventional application: Usually these awards are associated with specific courses, and usually the teachers of those courses are actually teaching. In my case, not this time.

The innovative teachers and dedicated learners who made this recognition possible are the CIS Sandbox assistants and students who have embraced the changes we have made, and turned the CIS Sandbox into a place where students gather to teach, talk, tutor, touch, and try technology.

This is my 4th innovation in teaching award at Bentley. I received one in 1999 with Wendy Lucas for a web application we implemented to create personalized course pages that let students check grades online (before the days of Blackboard), in 2005 for introducing Pocket PC’s to IT101, and 2006 for introducing student-created podcasts to the curriculum as a learning tool.

A summary of this year’s application follows the jump.
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Sandbox News

Bentley CIS, CIS Sandbox, Quoted,

bentley newsroomcampus technology article

The Bentley Newsroom wrote a short article published todayannouncing to the campus community that we’re open.

Campus Technology interviewed me about the technology, online, and collaborative aspects of the Sandbox in an interview that appeared on Nov. 2, 2011.

Lots going on that students are doing in the Sandbox these days. In addition to helping students with their classes, we’re offering a workshop with Microsoft on xbox development, and one next week on phone development. There’s a logo contest (the winner gets an ipod) and lots of other good information!

Welcome to the Sandbox!

Bentley CIS, Teaching, Technology

afterIn June, I wrote about the tutoring facility we started remodelling over the summer, and posted a photo of what it looked like before we started.

before

Our grand opening is next week. Here’s something I wrote about our hopes for the new CIS Learning and Technology Sandbox.

I was asked to write about why we created the Sandbox, its goals and purposes, how students will be using it, and what other universities have similar facilities. As we prepare for our grand opening on Monday, September 26, here’s some insights into what we were thinking.

The CIS Learning and Technology Sandbox is the newly remodeled and re-envisioned “CIS Lab” located in Smith 234.

The term “Sandbox” in industry refers to an environment for experimentation and trying new things. That’s our vision – to create an inviting, collaborative space for exploring and learning new technologies, and to support student learning for our courses, in ways that resonate with today’s digital students.

chairs

The Sandbox marks a formal transition from the individualized “computer lab” layout with computers around the perimeter of the room and students facing the walls, popular in the design of computer labs of the 1980’s and 1990s, to a more informal space where learning takes place around small tables or in a lounge setting.

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Before

Bentley CIS

We’re going to be renovating the CIS student tutoring and computer lab at my university over the summer. I took these photos and stitched them together with Microsoft Photosynth to create a view of what the place looks like before we get started with the renovations.