LAS VEGAS (Jan. 10, 2012) - To address the changing needs of students and educators, and to better prepare students for the demands of the 21st century economy, Steelcase recently introduced media:scape mini and media:scape mobile to enhance the classroom collaboration experience at HigherEd TECH, a technology summit for higher education held as part of the international Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

"The changes taking place on today's college and university campuses are extraordinary. Tech-savvy students are demanding more engaging learning experiences, new technologies offer creative alternatives to traditional learning and instruction, and teaching methods are more dynamic and interactive than ever before," said Sean Corcorran, General Manager of Steelcase Education Solutions. "These changes present many challenges to traditional instructional facilities. To help improve student academic success, while also building the collaborative and critical thinking skills needed for 21st century jobs, education environments must be re-invented. At Steelcase, we are leveraging our research into pedagogy, technology and space to create solutions for truly active learning environments."

To enable these more active learning environments, media:scape is designed for sharing information and enhancing student and instructor collaboration. The Steelcase media:scape family of products augments how teams collaborate, allowing participants to access and share their digital information quickly and seamlessly. The new media:scape mini and mobile options help transform classrooms, libraries, study rooms, and lounge areas into highly interactive learning spaces. The mini unit allows up to four people to interact with a single monitor and is easily moveable, allowing great flexibility. The mobile unit enables workers to bring media:scape to a diverse range of settings — from dorm rooms, to libraries, classrooms and lounge areas — wherever collaboration might occur.

"Students are more social, more collaborative and more demanding," said David Woolf, general manager of Steelcase Integrated Technologies. "We're seeing more students engaged in the learning process. There is more peer-to-peer teaching and a sense of community. Students today are digital natives and their technology expectations have increased. By enabling students to collaborate with media:scape mini, digital content is amplified and students can share information quickly."