Education Reform Extending to Classroom Design
from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online
Teachers who are interested in helping students to learn in new ways these days aren't only looking at what they teach and how they teach it, they're also looking at the environments they create. The push for schools to teach "21st-century skills" such as collaboration, creativity and problem-solving requires a different use of space than traditional classrooms provide, they say. Click to read the article.

Keeping Pace with Active Learning: the Node chair
from Steelcase.com
Amidst a variety of changes in education, both educators and designers of learning spaces are rethinking the classroom, looking for a comprehensive space that incorporates userfriendly technology, flexible furniture, and other tools that support active learning. Inspired by research and input from teachers and students alike, Steelcase created node, a chair for the active learning environment of today’s classroom. Students in a non-dedicated classroom at the University of Michigan found node greatly improved both their learning experience and their comfort in class. Read the case study.

The Greening of Aiken' at the University of Vermont
from The Burlington Free Press.com
About eight years ago, students and staffers began brainstorming how to make U of Vermont's Aiken Center, home of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, live up to it's programming. When the building is complete, the new Aiken Center will have, among other features, a green roof, to be used for research on storm-water management, natural lighting and ventilation, local building materials, and an adjoining solarium that will house a natural wastewater treatment system.

The expectation is that the new Aiken will achieve the highest rating — platinum — in the LEED certification system overseen by the U.S. Green Building Council. Click to read.

Trends in Classroom Technology Shifting
from SE Missourian.com
The classroom of the future will feature textbooks on touch-screens and more interactive learning systems. Technology is changing at the speed of light, and e-readers, particularly the iPad, are redefining how learning materials are distributed to students. Read the article.

Different Futures Imagined for Research Libraries
from The Chronicle of Higher Education
Research is moving online, and more and more users have moved away from thinking of the research library as the gateway to it. In the brave new digital world, librarians have to figure out new ways to engage with communities whose interest they used to be able to take for granted. Read.