LearningLab - Designing Tomorrow's Educational Tools

http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/74008.htm Have you ever heard of MOOC or Massive Open Online Courses? These free online courses provided mostly - but not only - by the largest US universities are undoubtedly the harbingers of the in-depth upheavals that will be sweeping educational methods in the coming years. Considering what can already be called a revolution, places of learning will have to be revamped with a view to fostering group work conducive to greater creativity. The issue is particularly important because this added value to places of learning will certainly make the difference tomorrow when choosing between a 'new look' and a standard university. Accordingly, the LearningLab developed as part of a collaboration between Ecole Centrale de Lyon and EMLYON Business School is promising with its wealth of innovations.

Jean-Pierre Berthet, Digital Strategy Manager at Ecole Centrale de Lyon and joint initiator of the LearningLab with Thierry Picq, Associate Dean for Learning Innovation at the EMLYON Business School Crdits : LearningLab "The Media Lab at MIT inspired me. That is our ambition for the LearningLab ," exclaimed Jean-Pierre Berthet, the Digital Strategy Manager at Ecole Centrale de Lyon, as he clearly outlined the target that he has set with his colleagues at the EMLYON Business School. The Media Lab, which is set up at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a laboratory where research combines design, multimedia and technology. Since its inception in 1985, numerous major innovations and technologies developed by the teams at the outstanding laboratory have led to an array of applications. " Now we are just bud but we will bloom quickly as our goal is to see what digital culture will change in educational methods and approaches to group work," he explained. He recalled how the idea of the LearningLab got off the ground when he started addressing the issue with Professor Thierry Picq, Associate Dean for Learning Innovation at the EMLYON Business School, as part of an alliance between the two Lyon-based schools of higher education. "We believed that the field of educational methods was likely to teach us how to work together and have conversations about our educational practices and experience ," he explained. In the course of their work, they quickly realized that they should take their goals a step further by creating a genuine research tool at the crossroads of innovative educational methods and technology use while rethinking places of learning. Moreover, instead of setting up a place focused on the educational concerns of the two schools of higher education, JeanPierre Berthet and Thierry Picq wanted to create an open place at the outset. So, the LearningLab is an experimental laboratory with classrooms, equipment and innovative methods that are made available to teachers and students, of course, but also to companies interested in their original approach. " Everyone can come try the equipment, test the methods, work in the classrooms and become aware of how they can learn and train differently ," Jean-Pierre Berthet explained. While some solutions were designed in-house, most developments offered by the LearningLab are the outcome of conflating available solutions. "Our policy is to seek out the best industry operator and the finest expertise on the market to foster the emergence of new efficient products," he said.

A LearningLab classroom and its special equipment Crdits : LearningLab The LearningLab, which is part of a broader outlook called IDEA (Innovation Design Entrepreneurship and Arts) that was recently accredited during an IDEFI (Initiatives D'Excellence en Formations Innovante, Initiatives of Excellence for Innovative Training Programs) call for projects, now has its own five-person team. They work on engineering and educational methods, on the sociological as well as technical aspects to see how technologies can be seamlessly integrated into the different practices. All this is done through networking with other partners, specifically furniture and acoustics firms. " We're gradually building a network of partners who are backing us, with whom we have been working on R&D for years ." Jean-Pierre Berthet then took the example of a market product whose use was changed in the course of research with the Hewlett Packard (HP) group, thus leading to the marketing of a new system, integrated with an all-in-one touch PC, making it possible to go from a 'desk' mode to a 'white board' mode to meet a need originally expressed by teachers. Admittedly the LearningLab is the outcome of reflection by two schools of higher education. But that does not mean that its initiators and designers only want to focus on the specific field of graduate education and training. " We are also interested in secondary school education and adult education as well as other fields. Indeed, we are putting together partnerships for the use of digital technology in museums ," stated Jean-Pierre Berthet. The revolution of education, training and learning is on the move. It is inevitable. "But beware," warned the Learning Lab manager,"of missing the boat." In other words, this means not just making new equipment available, as so often has been the case for several years in the French public school system, but deploying major teacher training efforts. " I'm convinced that it's a pipe dream to believe that introducing a technology is enough to change everything," he concluded.

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