Although I'm blogging after the fact, this helps to document our first steps. When we were given the "go ahead" to dream of recreating this 21st Century Learning Lab, I knew who to go to...the local experts! I have seen presentations by David Jakes and Ryan Bretag about creating authentic learning spaces. They're right in our backyard, we thought. I reached out to Ryan Bretag, who I met in the fall of 2008 at the Google Teachers Academy (btw, the most awesome professional development day EVER!). Back then, the Google offices provided much discussion amongst the educators present about the needed redesign of learning spaces for the 21st Century.
Back to my story. So we set out to visit Glenbrook North's IDEA space. Amy Lamberti, my 21st Century Facilitator partner, also connected with her PLN. Knowing that she heard that Daniel Rezac had "flipped" his learning space in his Northbrook school, we figured we could see both an elementary and a high school space in one trip!
The takeways we had from our visit can be shown by the pictures we took (and the editing I did with Picasa's photo editor). Take a look at what we wanted to incorporate into our space! (notice that some of the pictures were from our school)!