Never mind the laptops
There’s been a fair amount of press coverage lately (CHE Wired Campus Blog Ars Technica) on the University of Virginia’s decision to begin phasing out its computer labs. Generally, the reason has been attributed to cost and the fact that most students already have their own laptops and use those more than the machines in the lab.
While this situation obviously doesn’t apply to all schools, (at mine for instance I see the labs enjoy regular use) but what I think will be a more interesting trend to follow will be the impact of students with mobile devices. As has been frequently reported, mobile devices have much wider adoption than laptops and so the interesting question for those in the educational technology arena is how that will shape the configuration of learning spaces that integrate a spectrum of computing devices. Also, aside from the gadgets, how will it impact the design of more mundane things like tables and chairs? With this in mind, I don’t see labs being replaced, but reconfigured to accommodate changing circumstances. Schools like the University of St. Louis-Missouri seem to be moving in this direction already.
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