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Education IT

Taiwan uni develops futuristic classroom

By Xinghui Guo | 4 March 2011

The National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan has developed a US$50,000 classsroom equipped with moveable furniture and a smart touch screen that can be transformed into both a large whiteboard and desks for group discussions.

Light controls are integrated into the floor—teachers can control the intensity of the light or turn it on and off by stepping on buttons on the floor. Interactive learning is encouraged with real-time tagging technology that allows students to add tags and comments with laptops or tablets to on-going lectures that will appear on screen.

Also, lessons will be recorded and archived online for e-learning purposes. These recordings will also be annotated with the real-time comments and tags so viewing students can see which parts of the lecture received the most responses—thus listening only to the highlights of the lecture.

According to Associate Professor Jeng Tay-Sheng, who developed the classroom’s concept, this ‘iStudio’ (pictured) stands at 39.66 square metres and can house up to 20 Design and Architecture students at one go.

Inspired by American architect Louis Kahn’s notion that ‘Schools began with a man under a tree’, the classroom is a creative space, a film studio and an information station, said Wu Tien-yu, a doctoral candidate at NCKU’s Department of Architecture, part of the design team behind iStudio.

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