So, the iCARE research project (improving Children’s Auditory Rehabilitation) is coming to an end, and I had the privilege to participate in one of the last major milestones, recently executed (November 20-21 in Leuven, Belgium) – namely the iCARE conference. Professor Dr Astrid van Wieringen has been project managing all of us during these years, […]
Education
Snow – the sound of silence in the classroom…..
Västervångskolan, a school in southern Sweden, modified the acoustics and lighting in four classrooms on a trial basis in 2013. The experiment proved so successful that In 2015 the municipality decided that all schools in Landskrona would undergo similar acoustic and lighting upgrades. Class A sound absorbing suspended ceilings were installed, along with bass absorbents […]
Acoustic fine tuning transforms award winning science museum
Guest blog post by: Nick Treby focusing on recent alterations for Thinktank the Birmingham Science Museum Thinktank Birmingham is an award winning science museum, absolutely packed with exhibits that range from steam engines and talking robots through to gurgling guts and a chocolate wrapping machine. It features a Planetarium, and lots of changing exhibition spaces. It […]
Our top 5 posts on acoustics 2017
Wow, we sure get a good spread of topics on this little blog of ours and maybe, just maybe, this is what you like about it? When we summarise the major news and events in room acoustics 2017 we look back on everything from a nearly tropical ICBEN in Zurich, to interesting new podcast episodes […]
New report finds that children with reading difficulties need to screened for hearing problems
A recent report by Coventry University has been highlighted by the Nuffield Foundation and links reading difficulties with hearing impairments. The Nuffield article writes: “The researchers believe that if there was more awareness of youngsters’ hearing problems – as well as an understanding of what particular aspects of literacy they struggled with – then the […]
How open should a learning space be – acoustically? School Case Study 1
Noise is not something we only hear but something we feel, making teachers stressed and disturbing students. However, what feels like unwanted noise for some over distance, may be wanted sounds for another locally. This can create a conflict, so it is important to be able to separate these in order to create a sound […]
If Carlsberg built a University and hosted an education conference, they would discuss the value for good acoustics…..”probably!”
Well, not only does the Campus have good acoustics but it was host to the Annual European Education Research Association conference where acoustics was indeed a key part of one of the sessions…. The LEaRN team from the University of Melbourne organised an interesting session where the focus was industry and academia collaboration around educational […]
Transitions17, where education and architecture meet
Going beyond the traditional borders, be it education and pedagogy, architecture or geographical borders was the red thread of the Transitions symposium, the traveling ‘roadshow’ of the ILETC project when it came to London and Regent’s University for the first ever European edition (full program here). The world we live in is changing rapidly and […]
Are we listening or hearing in classrooms? The Indian perspective
There seems to be a universal agreement with the fact that proper acoustic treatment of a classroom will enhance comprehension abilities of its audience. This is more true with children as occupants compared with adults. To understand better, let’s first look at how our brain perceives sound. The adult brain takes all sounds we hear […]
I can’t hear myself think – lessons learned!
During a recent weeklong visit to Melbourne, my main purpose was to attend the Innovative Learning Environments and Teacher Change (ILETC) research project partners meeting and attend the ILETC education research Transitions Symposium “Transitions Inhabiting Innovative Learning Environments Symposium”. However, it was also an excellent opportunity to discuss and raise awareness about the importance of […]
