O O Ø O O O O
First Class
This year, the first day of school was a little different than usual. First, I was no longer sitting in the back row of the classroom. I was, in fact, standing in front of it. Second, there were 30 expectant-looking faces staring back at me, expecting me to teach something.
Admittedly, this latter part wasn’t exactly a revelation, and I had come prepared to start lecturing. I had all the usual materials: lecture notes, laptop, and projector. I had even thought ahead at what could go wrong. I had offline copy of the website in case the wireless network failed (it did), chalk in case the room was lacking (it was), and candles in case the power failed (just kidding). In short I was ready for whatever Murphy could throw at me.
And then surprisingly, Murphy had nothing to do with it.
I arrived in the room (10 minutes early), and did a quick mental check:
Blackboards—the movable kind. Check.
Overhead projector. (How quaint). Check.
Pull-down screen. Check.
Extension cord. (wow.) Check.
Table. I guess that’s for the overhead projector. Check. And that means the power outlet should be…
Right under the blackboards, where I’m guaranteed to trip on anything I plug in..
Grumbling a bit, I set up the projector on the available table and turned it on. After the mandatory 1-minute warm up period, I had my picture—a 2-foot square hardly visible even from the front of the room. Apparently, the table wasn’t for the projector after all. So I started pushing it back—and back. And back. Finally, with the extension cord stretched so that it was no longer actually resting on the flooor, I found a usable spot for the projector. The image almost reached the width of the screen, and setting the projector to maximum tilt, the projected image just cleared the bottom. “Good enough,” I grumbled and checked my watch. Class was on.
I stepped back, reached for the chalk, and glancing back at the front of the room, realized the problem—if you’re going to use a projector, that’s all you can use. The screen was very carefully installed in the middle of the blackboard, and when pulled down, carefuly obscures anything you may want to write there. So it is blackboard or screen, but not both. Not exactly convenient for a course where the examples all consist of meaningless strings of letters like:
VIYRCZIDOCVNBJIZKVNODRDGGOPMIOCZDIIZMZTZOJNZZDONKVOC
Still, I suppose it could be worse. I’ve actually been to the classroom of the future. It’s at SFU. It cost a few million dollars, and it’s just as useless as our 60s-era facilities.
The room was designed for 3-D visualization, and it had an enormous projection setup aimed at the top half of the movie-theatre-like room. Along the bottom were a row of smart-boards—digital whiteboards. Everything seemed perfect, until they turned on the power. As it turned out, the large projectors were too loud to use, so then ended up using a tiny, underpowered portable projector instead. The white-boards were even worse. Apparently, they just don’t make a smartboard big enough to use in a classroom setting. They’re OK in boardrooms, but once you move to an ampetheatre, you realize just how small an 84″ TV really is.
So I guess I don’t feel so bad about our facilities. Sure, they could have fixed the whole issue by installing the screen to the side, but this is a math building. We’re supposed to use chalk for everything—even long strings of random characters.
And in the end, I only tripped on the cord twice. Score one for the good guys.
Kjell Wooding
September 12, 2006
OOØOOOODCCLXXIII
September 13th, 2006 at 5:12 am
Point taken. Fellow designers, take note.
September 13th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Indeed. If only I knew an architect. ;)