This summer, Lon Appleby, a professor who teaches humanities at Durham College (DC), was told that he was going to have to move out of the Global Classroom, a classroom he spearheaded ten years ago.
What he didn’t realize at the time was the ‘mini’ global class, which he moved into, was going to suit his teaching a lot more.
Appleby said the idea for the Global Classroom goes back decades. “I wanted to create some kind of classroom space that felt not like a classroom, but more like a lounge, theatre, learning space…all rolled into one,” he said.
Originally, the Global Classroom was in a much smaller room across from the bookstore. Appleby would project a Skype call with other professors or students from around the world onto a white projector screen that pulled down from the ceiling.
When the Centre for Collaborative Education (CFCE) at DC’s Oshawa Campus was being built, Appleby wanted to get in on the ground floor, literally.
Former DC President Don Lovisa and Appleby hatched a plan. The new and improved Global Classroom was going to be in the brand new CFCE building.
“We all believed that education and the idea of a classroom needed to grow,” said Appleby.
Over the years, the Global Classroom has been used for classes and events throughout the school year.
However, this summer, DC announced that the Global Classroom would only be used for events in the fall semester.
“We recently had an opportunity as a college to announce the MRC studio,” said Tony Doyle, associate vice-president of Academics at DC.
According to an email sent by the college, the Mixed Reality Capture (MRC) Studio will be built in a space inside the Centre for Innovation and Research (CIR) that was previously used for events.
For now, DC will use the Global Classroom to hold these events instead.
Doyle said the Global Classroom was chosen because it was already being used for events regularly.
“Students will be in there, our community will be in there,” he said. “People will be coming together and celebrating essentially education and community. And so, it was something that made sense.”
Appleby was frustrated when he was first asked to move to the ‘mini’ global classroom. However, he finds the technology in the new classroom functions better.
“The content in [the Global Classroom] was always suffering because I was dealing with so much tech over the years,” said Appleby.
He said students are a lot more engaged in the ‘mini’ global class because he doesn’t spend as much time fighting with the technology.
“So I can really teach the content. That’s been liberating. And I want to stay here in this space and really go for it,” said Appleby.
In the end, it may have been a blessing in disguise for him.
“I also understood that there’s opportunity in change,” he said, “and If I’m going to stand up in front of my students and talk about adapting and evolving to situations, then I gotta walk the talk.”
Appleby is excited to see what the future of the ‘mini’ global classr has in store. “Things were changing, and I was willing to see what other opportunities there might be to continue what I was doing.”
Doyle would only comment on the Global Classroom’s future to the end of this semester.