DIG 210 is my third class in Studio D. As we all know, the room functions pretty differently from other classrooms on campus: moveable desks, a laptop cart, whiteboards around the perimeter, and four monitors make the space pretty flexible. Whereas most rooms contain rows of chairs that face in one direction, Studio D’s design makes students constantly change who (and what) they are looking at. For my observations this week, I focused on the room’s monitors: I know that I don’t have my “go-to” screen in the room, and was curious if other students switched the screens they looked at as well.
The diagram below shows the four monitors in the classroom. On Tuesday, there were three moments in which students were asked to look at a screen: the first and second related to blog posts, and the third related to our discussion on annotating the Apple Watch website. On Thursday, Moment 1 represents a review of the course syllabus, Moment 2 represents pre-Gephi discussion, and Moment 3 occurred after the Gephi demonstration concluded. The following results describe the screens students focused on for each of these moments:
Moment 1: Screen 1: 7, Screen 2: 4, Screen 3: 3, Screen 4: 3, Personal Laptops: 10
Moment 2: Screen 1: 6, Screen 2: 6, Screen 3: 3, Screen 4: 3, Personal Laptops: 9
Moment 3: Screen 1: 5, Screen 2: 2, Screen 3: 2, Screen 4: 0, Personal Laptops: 18
On Thursday, The following results describe the screens students focused on for each of these moments:
Moment 1: Screen 1: 1, Screen 2: 1, Screen 3: 1, Screen 4: 3, Personal Laptops: 20
Moment 2: Screen 1: 2, Screen 2: 0, Screen 3: 1, Screen 4: 10, Personal Laptops: 13
Moment 3: Screen 1: 2, Screen 2: 2, Screen 3: 2, Screen 4: 7, Personal Laptops: 2
Thus, it becomes clear that students in Studio D do not focus on a single screen; instead, they alternate the direction toward which they pay attention. I’m not sure whether this is a good or bad thing- or neither. It certainly does contrast sharply with typical classroom settings, at least. Tuesday saw more students looking at the screens across the classroom’s walls than on their own devices.
