My pre-ISTE Adventures

I left Tampa, FL bright and early yesterday with my friend and colleague Okle Miller (@okle_miller) to start on our ISTE adventures. Before heading to Atlanta, we took a detour to Athens, GA to visit Andy Plemmons and check out Barrows Media Center.

I’ve been following Andy’s blog since early this school year, and I love the amazing things he does at his school. So needless to say, I was super-excited to get to see his amazing media center in person.

His entire school was recently renovated thanks to a 1% sales tax that his district voted on. The entire school is gorgeous and very student focused. The halls are all divided into grades, and each grade has a collaborative area (or two) where classes can work together on projects. There are whiteboards and interactive screens everywhere, and there’s lots of cozy little nooks for students to hang out in. All of the student desks are mobile and modular, and every classroom has several Hokki stools available for the fidgety kids. All of the furniture came from VS.

The library continued the design theme of the rest of the school, with curved mobile shelving units, lots of mobile, modular tables, and two instruction areas. This makes the space super flexible, so it can accommodate multiple classes or events at one time. Check out Andy’s blog to see lots of great examples of the space in action.

After we finished up at Barrow, we got to hang out with Andy and his family in downtown Athens (which is gorgeous – if you’ve never been there, it’s worth a visit). We checked out a local independent bookstore, AVID, which was awesome.

The first day of pre-ISTE was amazing, and I can’t wait to see all the amazing experiences I’ll have this weekend!