REIMAGINING THE SCHOOL MEDIA CENTER OF THE FUTUREUsing Design Thinking to meet today’s education technology challenges

INDUSTRY INSIGHT

“In my mind, it’s like back in those years when cars first appeared in the streets of the cities. You still had the horse and buggy. You had the new car, and you also had the beginnings of a whole new network of transportation starting to take place - all happening at the same point. That’s the same thing that’s going on in our media centers,” said Dr. Pryor. “So, you have the past, the present, and the future all going on at the same time, which makes for an intense scenario.

“I’ve been in education a long time, and I’ve never seen that kind of convergence before.”

So, he came to CompuCom®’s Design Thinking team.

“As we looked for a solution, we came across CompuCom, visited CompuCom, and saw what the layout and the focus was there. I had heard of Design Thinking, but hadn’t really implemented that model into leading these 10 media centers,” said Dr. Pryor.

In early 2018, Spartanburg District One Schools Assistant Superintendent Dr. Jimmy Pryor had to solve a problem. As the district’s leader for technology, he knew that the media centers in his 10 schools badly needed an overhaul.

His situation isn’t unique. The average U.S. school is 44 years old,¹ and more than half of public schools report they need to spend money on their school buildings to bring them up to modern standards.² Educators across the country are struggling to keep up with the avalanche of new technology available to them and to effectively incorporate it into education goals. That means infrastructure needs are changing and some old models are being abandoned.

“Across the nation, many districts are beginning to phase out their media centers - and even close them, sadly - so we wanted to make sure that our media centers continue to be the instructional center of the school, to be relevant, and to lead the charge to being those resources for our teachers and students,” Dr. Pryor explained.

As part of its technology plan³, Spartanburg D1 has a “1-to-1” laptop computer initiative for students. What Dr. Pryor needed was a support structure for those devices, and he wanted the media centers to fit into that goal physically and instructionally.

“It’s not really about the device. It’s what surrounds it,” said Dr. Pryor.

The district started by looking at the layout and furniture in the media centers, but Dr. Pryor knew the problem required more than just an updated physical space. He had to straddle the past expectations of a media center, the current expectations, and also the needs of the future.

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REIMAGINING THE SCHOOL MEDIA CENTER OF THE FUTURE Using Design Thinking to meet today’s education technology challenges

How Design Thinking Works

Design Thinking employs design methods which lead to immediate tangible solutions. Instead of creating a product first, a team begins by working to understand issues and challenges from the perspective of the end-user through listening and research.

“You don’t spend time writing an onerous 60-page design document that nobody ever reads. Instead, you very quickly get to a prototype of a solution for the customer and then you test and iterate the prototype by talking to the customer about it,” explained CompuCom Vice President of Digital Innovation Shawn Fields.

Design Thinking STAGES:

• Empathize Through listening and research, the team gains empathy for the end user in order to fully understand the individuals and their needs, thus setting aside their own perception of what solutions should look like.

• Define Using all of the information gathered, the team then defines the core problems that need to be solved along with the features, functions, or other elements that might be required.

• Ideate The team brainstorms based on its new understanding of the users and their needs. The insight gained in the empathize stage encourages “outside-the-box” solutions.

• Prototype The team quickly develops prototypes for the highest rated solutions so that ideas that have the highest potential to solve the problem are represented.

• Test The prototypes are tested, then tweaked, tuned, and re-tested and evaluated based on user input.

Fields said the Design Thinking approach creates much better products.

“It lowers the risk of a bad design, a bad product launch, or of a product or service not being able to meet the needs of the consumer for whom it was designed”, he said.

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To understand the needs of students, teachers, and media center specialists, CompuCom Design Thinking Consultants visited several Spartanburg schools, observing and interviewing students, teachers, and media specialists. Then Spartanburg School District One and CompuCom held a collaborative three-day Design Thinking workshop. Four teams looked for new opportunities for teachers and students to meet or exceed curriculum goals using school media centers, the media center specialists, digital tools, and modern learning spaces.

“Personas” of end users were developed so solutions could be seen from their perspectives. The personas for Spartanburg included “Josh” - an average 9-year-old 3rd-grade student, “Stella” - a 30-year-old math teacher, “Taylor” - a 14-year-old gifted student, and “Anne” - a 40-year-old math teacher.

Inside the Spartanburg School District One Design Thinking workshop

“What it allowed us to do was strip away all that minutia, to strip away all of the clutter, and focus fully on what we were trying to accomplish with the media centers,” said Dr. Pryor.

The teams used “customer journey maps” that followed emotions like a student’s initial excitement about coming to the media center that faded to frustration when a lack of support was encountered. Actions taken in the media center, like research or design, were considered. Touchpoints like computers and books were reviewed, and stakeholders like teachers, librarians, and parents were considered.

That information was used to draw up “problem statements.” In one example, a problem for “Stella” the teacher was that she often plans her lessons alone, making her feel isolated. The suggested solution offered her more opportunities for collaboration.

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The results:

The winning concept for the “Media Center of the Future” included these components:

The Spartanburg D1 Portal - a website and mobile collaboration tool to connect teachers and media center specialists that also provides access to a multitude of resources.

Users want a single and simple-to-use portal to be a single point to access existing systems that not only allows students, teachers, and media center specialists to collaborate but also incor-porates self-service functions for the teacher and students to access media center tools. The solution gives Spartanburg County School Dis-trict One the option of incorporating a learning management system (LMS) where teachers can:

• Access best practices when building lesson plans

• Organize courses and post content for students

• Track due dates and manage schedules

• Increase student engagement through interactive discussions

• Grading, online tests, and quizzes for immediate scoring

• Collect homework via online dropbox

• Manage attendance

• Assess student performance

• Private teacher-to-teacher and teacher-to-media-center-specialist communication

• Teacher forums

1.

2.

3.

Collaboration and instant communication with the media center specialist - Using Cisco Webex Teams, users have a website and app-based tool where they are able to send messages, share files, and meet with different teams - all in one place.

The tool features an interactive screen where teachers and media center specialists can speak face-to-face and talk about lesson plans and how to leverage the media center’s resources.

Large screens in the media center act as electronic whiteboards that aid in teaching and collaboration. What’s written on the board can be saved and shared for later reference.

Flexible scheduling - CompuCom solved the flexible scheduling requirement through the use of Google’s G Suite, which the district was already using. Using the online calendar, teachers can reserve areas like the makerspace and the group collaboration area in the media center to give students several options to apply what they’ve learned in lessons.

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4.

5.

Remote Media Center - a self-checkout

concept for “vending” books and other media.

Students help themselves to books and other

learning tools without making a trip to the

media center using a self-checkout system

that utilizes the CompuCom Digital Locker and

Vending Solution.

Items can be stored in the locker and checked

out using a uniquely generated secure code

to open the locker and then additional secure

codes to return the item. Reporting and noti-

fications can be enabled to improve student/

teacher interaction with the locker as well as

ensure the return processes are followed.

Digital signage and student/teacher showcase - In addition to digital signage with

corresponding content management that

announces things like upcoming events, new

books, and new robotic projects, CompuCom

leveraged the WebEx Teams displays and furni-

ture to create both technical and non-technical

student/teacher showcases to display student or

teacher work. The technical content is for dis-

plays only, while the non-technical components

include trophy cases, shelving, and other areas

to display non-digital content like robotics or

other STEM projects.

6. Walk-up student-run tech bar/teaming tables/student learning pods/makerspaces -

Leveraging furniture solutions from Office

Depot, the media center offers an exciting

range of inviting spaces for students to learn in.

Anyone can get technical help at the walk-up

student-run tech bar which empowers students

to manage and maintain their own learning

tools - a useful life skill in today’s

tech-heavy world.

Team stations support digital/virtual

collaboration and production, while cozy

pods and modular seating support deep

thinkers and self-teachers as they work on

their contributions to team solutions.

Makerspaces are areas for learners to practice

synthesizing products that challenge them to

use cross-curricular skill sets to solve real-world,

complex problems.

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08.21.2018

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

School libraries were once dominated by high bookshelves and disapproving librarians who frowned at the slightest noise. The 21st century media center must be a more welcoming space that embraces the digital revolution and adapts a wide range of constantly-improving technology to better learning outcomes.

Spartanburg School District One is squarely at that crossroads and was struggling to find ways to keep its media centers relevant and an active part of digital learning.

With the Media Center of the Future project, Spartanburg County School District One and CompuCom used Design Thinking to develop state-the-art solutions to help teachers integrate technology and excitement into their lessons - ultimately helping students prepare for their digital future.

ALREADY SEEING RESULTS

Implementing much of what came out of the Design Thinking process will take time. A team of teachers is currently mapping the district’s curriculum digitally to determine what elements to include in the Spartanburg D1 Portal with an emphasis on supporting teachers. But Dr. Pryor was surprised by how quickly some parts of the plan took root.

“I wasn’t really expecting much traction. I thought we’d get our traction at the beginning of this school year. I thought I’d take back the deliverables and take back the suggestions and start building a slow incremental process towards implementation, but I was wrong,” he explained. “Towards the end of the school year, as I was walking around and swinging by the media centers, the physical environment that we had envisioned as a group - as a team - they’ve already started to implement.”

1. https://kapost-files-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/published/56F 02c3d626415b792000008/2016-state-of-our-schools-report. pdf?kui=wo7vkgV0wW0LGSjxek0N5A

2. http://ilabs.washington.edu/sites/default/files/14Cheryan_etal_Meltzoff_ Designing%20Classrooms.pdf

3. http://ilabs.washington.edu/sites/default/files/14Cheryan_etal_Meltzoff_ Designing%20Classrooms.pdf

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