The future of learning

Monash is the first university in Australia to install specialised work spaces that provide students with a unique way of sharing information.

The new specialised work spaces enable students to quickly and easily share information from their laptops or mobile devices by transferring it with just one click to monitors on view to all those in the learning group.

The spaces can be configured in a variety of ways, whether in an informal armchair style setting, around desk height tables or at standing height.

Each table has between four to six laptop inputs and either one or two monitors , along with power outlets to recharge devices.

The ‘media:scape’  furniture, as it is known, came from the US based company Steelcase, which specialises in workplace products.

Explaining the thinking behind the workspaces, Mr Lew Epstein, Director of Advanced Marketing at Steelcase, said collaboration can be defined and shaped by three inseparable factors.

“They are the social factors, people to people; spacial factors, people to space, and information factors, people to the analogue and digital tools that they are using to share information," Mr Epstein said.

“These three are really inseparable and they impact how and where people want to collaborate.”

“It’s like the flow of a conversation. You say something, I say something, someone else chimes in and it just keeps moving with a really smooth rate of speed –  no interruptions.”

Monash has installed a mix of settings. For informal use they have been placed on level one of the Campus Centre and in the Hargrave -Andrew and Matheson libraries at Clayton campus.  They have been installed as a classroom setting in the Faculties of IT at Caulfield  and Business and Economics at Peninsula.

Their introduction to the University has been a collaboration between the Space Management Unit of Facilities and Services and the eEducation Centre. The two groups worked with Audio, Visual and Conference Support, the Library and the Faculties of Information Technology and, Business and Economics to set up the spaces.