Exploring eXSpace

In this follow-on from one of my previous posts entitled Going to the wall, I'm going to highlight some of the features we plan to incorporate into our new experimental learning space (eXSpace) at Plymouth Institute of Education. I mentioned that among the many 'sand box' tools and technologies in the space will be a number of touch surfaces. We hope for example, to purchase several units of the new SMARTboard 6000 and 7000 series interactive whiteboards for institute wide use. One of those units will be located within the eXSpace.

I saw the latest SMART interactive whiteboards on display at the BETT Show in London in January and I was particularly enamoured by two key advances in their design. The first was the context aware system built into both the 6000 and 7000 series devices. The boards can identify what colour pen the teacher is holding, and can also sense for example, when someone has walked into the room (whereupon it automatically readies itself for use). This might be seen as a gimmick by some, and indeed with previous incarnations of the SMARTboard, this feature was already integrated to a limited extent. However, picking up the red pen and then replacing it in the black pen socket didn't help matters. The colours of the pens on earlier versions were not as important as the place you located them. A pen placed in the black pen socket printed black no matter what colour it was. Now, SMART seems to have solved this problem with their new object recognition system - the black pen writes in black no matter where you store it.

The second, and probably the most important feature for teachers, is the multi-user interface. Anyone who has used previous versions of interactive whiteboards will know that in many cases, only one person can use the touch surface at a time. This is all changing. SMART have developed a screen where up to four people can use the surface simultaneously. Some might consider this overkill, but I can see some real pedagogical advantages and possibilities.

Firstly, it will support collaborative learning in numerous ways, not least because students could use the board for the purposes of brainstorming ideas, organising their projects, mapping out alternative approaches to solving a problem, group mind mapping, and so on.

Secondly, it will make it easier for teachers to work constructively alongside students using the same thinking and viewing space. The ability to interact directly with the thinking of others by creating one's own content alongside existing content, merging, comparing and contrasting and even overwriting, is a complex process that can support advanced levels of cognition and problem solving.

Thirdly, all of the content that is created on the surface can be recorded and then shared in a number of ways, not just via the SMARTboard screen, but also on the personal screens of students present or absent, synchronously or asynchronously, because it can be disseminated widely through multiple digital formats.

Ultimately, the multi-user touch surface of the SMARTboard 6000 and 7000 series allow a myriad of operations and learning opportunities that I am keen to explore with my students. The use of it in the eXSpace, if I am to be critical, may not necessarily prepare my student teachers for the classrooms they will be entering on placement, mainly because most schools won't have the 7000 series yet. Many of the whiteboard tools students will encounter out in the real world of school are often out of date, malfunctioning or due to be replaced. The SMART Learning Suite for example, combines lesson delivery, assessment, student collaboration and game-based learning software into one education resource. This has the potential, if used effectively, to connect students, teachers, and devices together. It goes without saying that such an approach could transform traditional lessons into enriching learning experiences for everyone.

What I am most keen to promote in the eXSpace however, is the utility of multi-user touch screen technologies to support and rich collaborative learning experiences. Simply being exposed to the use of new technologies may promote some innovative thinking about alternative pedagogies. I'm particularly interested in exploring the potential of such technologies to move pedagogy beyond the 'show and tell' teaching toward a more co-constructed learning where everyone is engaged in discovering new knowledge and skills.

Photo from Pixabay


Exploring eXSpace by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.