Huddle Spaces - It's not for football any more!

For his last birthday party, my son Tuvia had a group of friends over to play Minecraft.  He had spent a whole week building this amazing virtual world for he and his friends to play in but, before they began, Tuvia wanted to show them the "lay of the land."   The problem was that his iPad screen was too small for everyone to huddle around and see.  As his friends complained, Tuvia said "No Problem, Tattie (Yiddish for dad), can you please turn on the huddle room?"  As I chuckled, I mirrored Tuvia's iPad to our big screen TV and his friends were happy.

More and more, as collaboration becomes entrenched in the work that we do and the way that we teach, we have to be able easily share information.  It is during that sharing that new ideas can foster, and a deep, rich group participation can begin to flow.  Schools have realized that we have to let students experience this creative sharing "huddle" and as educators, we need to know how to facilitate the process.

Don't get me wrong, "huddle spaces" have existed for decades.  The kitchen table, the corner of the classroom, the office meeting room to name a few.  The difference now is how these spaces are being equipped in a specialized way to promote local and international collaboration. In my previous blog, I dealt with a ways to share technology in these spaces and below I show some examples of the spaces themselves.

In some spaces, students get together to share ideas - and screens.

In other spaces, small, directed (differentiated) classes can take place.

Some schools create multiple huddle spaces out of a larger space.

Not all huddle spaces need to have technology.  Some are just for germinating ideas by writing on the walls.

Do you have huddle spaces in your school?  What do you think about this idea?  Share on the blog page.

Regards....

Yossie

Yossie Frankel
Director - Consortium for Information and Academic Technologies
Member Schools:
Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy - yfrankel@hillelhebrew.org
Oakland Hebrew Day School - y.frankel@ohds.org
Shalhevet High School - y.frankel@shalhevet.org
Yeshivat Yavneh - www.yha.org
Arete Preparatory Academy - yfrankel@areteprep.org

Midreshet Emunah V'Omanut - Jerusalem - yfrankel@emunahvomanut.org
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