By Rebecca V. Frazee and Lisa Stephens of FLEXspace.org featuring our friends and supporters we visited with on the NeoCon floor in Chicago! Jeff West, VP of Marketing at Shaw Contract, Heather Morgan, Education Specialist at DIRTT, Thomas Doe, Director of Higher Education at VS America, Derrell Jackson, Director of Workplace Markets at Tarkett, Jeff Vredevoogd at Haworth Learning, and Michelle Carpenter – CEO at Modern Context Inc.
To browse details, images, floor plans, and more from spaces featured in this column, plus hundreds more, log in to FLEXspace.org and visit the Gallery “HEAV – Higher Ed AV Magazine Feature”
While our HEAV AV/IT friends were focused on Infocomm and AVIXA – no doubt enjoying HEAV’s new presence on the showroom floor (!)… Lisa was at the NeoCon Show in Chicago – the largest showcase of furniture solutions imaginable! It was just as mind-blowing with visual overload as the Infocomm floor when I first saw it!
Sustainable Manufacturing is Getting Real
My biggest takeaway from NeoCon is less talk and more action around manufacturing sustainable products. It’s hard to name just a few manufacturers, but Shaw Contract demonstrated (at left) how they both recycle and use recycled materials in manufacturing floor covering (below right).
DIRTT is supporting sustainable construction through prefabricated solutions that evolve to meet their client’s needs. Their system allows for incremental change, rather than demolish and repeat, making construction more sustainable. DIRTT showed off their custom AR app that allows clients to experience the space virtually during all phases of design (below left)! The curved glass corners were a new addition this year (below right):
VS America described manufacturing processes that increase re-use efficiency and displayed a lot of fun rooms for preschool and younger students in addition to their adjustable height writable surface tables that would work in any educational or office setting:
Tarkett describes a “circular economy” that focuses on renewable products and “retake” (trade-in) of older products that can be reused and repurposed. I visited their studio space in the Fulton District just north of the NeoCon show. Unfortunately, I missed meeting Rex Miller, but had a chance to browse through some of his graphic books on educating children (with a nod to environments!)
Haworth describes their commitment to the UN’s SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals). Nearly every display I saw focused on design, application, and climate concerns. There was enough detail provided to convince me it was more than just a marketing move. Haworth had full displays of space solutions for active learning, quiet space, and solutions for different learning styles across all grade levels.
Summer Upgrades… Are You Uploading …(fill in the blank) FLEX…?
We have heard hundreds of stories of upgrades and plans to expand student access via Hybrid and HyFlex rooms. Do you have any “ActiveFlex” rooms? This is the new term being used to describe the intersections of (usually) third-party software coupled to active learning pedagogy in classrooms. We’d love to see more examples and case studies of how different institutions are tackling these designs! Please help your colleagues if you’ve got some spaces to share!
FLEXspace 3.0 Development Update
Another thank you to all who have provided feedback on FLEXspace.org. We’re working hard with KWALL to integrate the focus group and survey feedback and already we’re excited to see streamlined functionality. The move to the updated portal won’t be painful, it uses most of the same tagging and descriptive information that is currently available – but we think our FLEXspace community will be pleased with two major improvements beyond the streamlining! New pages will highlight partner galleries, and you’ll soon have the opportunity to publish idea boards. Alternatively – you can also choose to keep them private among your advisory group.
We will be able to share much of the new look and feel at SCUP in Cleveland, anticipating a production rollout (or darn close) by EDUCAUSE and A4LE in Chicago.
The best part of attending NeoCon was the opportunity to reconnect with the strongest of FLEXspace supporters who helped launch the original production platform!
At left is Jeff Vredevoogd now at Haworth, and Derrell Jackson, now with Tarkett, and Michelle Carpenter has launched out on her own for strategic design consulting! Her new website says, “We’ll help you lay a solid foundation and infuse your ideas with purpose, transforming them into tangible actions that generate the impact you crave” (https://www.moderncontext.co). Rebecca and I can attest that without these three in our earliest ideation stages, there would be no FLEXspace to share! Most of the pictures for this update were taken as we visited old and new supporters of FLEXspace at NeoCon to say “thanks for your interest and support!” It was truly fun to be an observer and listener rather than a presenter for this one-day turnaround visit to my old hometown of Chicago!
Cheers to our many FLEXspace Friends & Family (in presentation order) who helped me navigate my first trip to NeoCon!
Guest Contributors
Shaw Contract – Jeff West, VP of Marketing, Shaw Contract Jeff.West@shawinc.com
DIRTT – Heather Morgan, Education Specialist – (306) 220-8988 – hmorgan@dirtt.com
VS America – Thomas Doe, Director of Higher Education (617) 945-3915 – tdoe@vsamerica.com
Tarkett – Derrell Jackson, Director of Workplace Markets – Derrell.Jackson@tarkett.com
Haworth – Jeff Vredevoogd, Haworth Learning, (616) 836-4248 Jeff Vredevoogd@haworth.com
Michelle Carpenter – Modern Context Inc., michelle@moderncontext.co (please note: “.co” not “com”)
The FLEXspace Team
LISA STEPHENS, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean, Digital & Online Education
School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, The University at Buffalo
Project Director, FLEXspace.org
Lisa serves as Assistant Dean at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences leading the Office of Digital & Online Education, and also serves as Senior Strategist for Academic Innovation in the Office of the SUNY Provost. She enjoys an appointment in the UB Department of Communication as an Adjunct Associate Professor. Her SUNY portfolio includes leadership of FLEXspace.org™ and serves as the SUNY Partner Manager for Coursera.
REBECCA V. FRAZEE, Ph.D.
Faculty, Learning Design & Technology Program
San Diego State University
Associate Director, FLEXspace.org
Dr. Rebecca Vaughan Frazee recently joined the University of California San Francisco as a Digital Equity Education Analyst, helping the IT Education team ensure equitable provisioning of a robust teaching and learning environment to meet the needs of the UCSF faculty and students and serve the UCSF education mission. Rebecca is a former faculty member in the Learning Design and Technology program at San Diego State University, School of Journalism and Media Studies where she taught for over 15 years and served as a faculty peer mentor. ]
The Flexible Learning Environments eXchange (FLEXspace.org) is an award-winning community and open digital repository for higher ed that houses a growing collection of user-contributed content “by campuses for campuses,” with detailed examples of formal and informal learning spaces ranging from multimedia studios, maker spaces, computer labs, hybrid/flexible classrooms, and huddle spaces to large exhibit spaces, simulation labs and renovated lecture halls. FLEXspace was launched in 2012 as a collaboration between SUNY, the CSU Cal State University system, and Foothill-DeAnza Community College District and has since grown to include over 5000 members from 1400 campuses around the world, with PennState joining the partnership in 2019. FLEXspace won the Campus Technology Innovators Award in 2016, and the California Higher Education (CHEC) Collaborative Conference Focus on Efficiency Award in 2018.
FLEXspace users include practitioners, experts, and decision-makers in higher education, K-12, libraries, and museums who are focused on campus planning and facilities, learning technology, A/V systems integration, instructional design, teaching, and research. The FLEXspace portal provides a sophisticated suite of features that enables users to document and showcase their own campus learning spaces, share research, best practices, and tools for planning.