I figured the Dylan theme was worth the stretch for one more blog.

I’m writing this from the Hotel@MIT in Cambridge, Massachussetts, conference hotel for the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative Fall Focus Session on “Learning Spaces.” First things first: I love my hotel room. Spacious, tech-themed in a very tasteful way right down to the bedspread covered in equations, a comfy chair AND an ergonomic desk chair that sits at a very elegant desk (I covet this desk lamp) where a tea/coffee maker is just to one side. Lucky for me the conference promises to be a good one; otherwise, with the complimentary broadband I’d probably never leave the room.

See? I’m not hard to please. Well, it lacks a full multimedia kit, true. I feel my passion ebbing.

This afternoon the group had a two-hour walking tour of learning spaces at MIT. Sidebar: a classroom is a learning space, often not a very good one, but the idea of “learning space” encompasses the design and use of any place where teaching and learning occur. Think of a learning space as a focused world that encourages and facilitates reflection and creation. At any rate, the tour was enjoyable and informative, but a couple of the spaces were eye-openers, especially a physics classroom that looked like a super-neat sports bar (sans bar) with a slew of circular tables at which students would do their work and, when appropriate, attend to the teacher. Screens and projected images ringed the room, and each screen was flanked by numbered white boards. Actually, in some respects the room looked like a crude but effective model of the inside of a mind. So maybe that’s one way to conceptualize learning spaces: they should model aspects of mind, or be constructed around (or to resemble) metaphors of mental activity. Administrative and organizational efficiencies are not negligible, but they shouldn’t drive the design (even though that’s what usually happens, as we all know).

Let the revels begin. Tomorrow and half the day on Friday I’ll be surrounded by bright and creative people who like to think about thinking and about education and about educational engineering. Life could be a lot worse. Great food tonight, too, at Legal Seafood (memo to self: remember to look into banner ad possibilities for blog) in the fine company of Kathy and Bob and Gene. The Best Idea of the Evening Award goes to Kathy for the notion of a mid-life sabbatical for everyone. Take a breather, take stock, and go back prepared to “make good choices,” as the mom says to the young woman in Freaky Friday. Actually, that gratuitous movie reference is mine; the great idea is all Kathy’s.