I found our 'field trip' the other day to be rather interesting. Even though we were only able to visit a small selection of learning spaces on campus, we were able to actively view how multimedia is used to teach students in numerous different faculties (humanities, commerce, health sciences, science, and even faculty education). One concept that particularly interested me arose in our discussion outside Kenneth Taylor Hall. Dr. Rockwell told us about how discussions are taking place with regard to changing the physical layout of the multimedia lab to make it a more group oriented workplace.
The idea is to have computers integrated into the desks (below eye level) and have the workstations arranged in groups, so students are directly interacting with each other. This made me think about m experience at work this summer. I worked as an intern at an IT company which utilized a similar concept in the layout of workspaces. The organization was nothing like a typical Office Space office. There was a completely open concept. Only the executives had offices, which even had glass walls. The managers had cubicles, but the fourth wall only ever closed during meetings, and even when it was closed it was made out of fogged glass, so you could still see what was going on inside. The rest of the employees were situated at desks with a completely open concept. The wall dividing them from their neighbour only rose about 2 feet from the desks, and very few employees had more than two walls.
The idea behind this concept is clear. A large portion of the office was a sales floor, and another large chunk was the marketing department. It was designed like this not only to save space, but more importantly to increase employee interaction. It is much easier to ask questions or to ask for help if all you have to do is stand up.
To build on this idea, it was my estimation that the use of instant messaging would be looked down upon (or even banned) in a professional workplace. This was not the case, in fact it was entirely the contrary. Just about every employee had and was using MSN throughout the day (including the executives). Once again, the idea behind this was it is much easier to ask a question while remaining at your desk or on the phone with a customer than getting up and trying to hunt someone down. Now obviously for this to be successful, a lot of trust is put in the employees, but from my experience it was a very successful use of new media in the workplace.
