You can't see anybody's face. If you want to do group work, the computers are too far apart. Even having a discussion is difficult because of the noise. The room has few users during the summer, but Mr. Kerns captured on videotape a writing class there in the spring. Class members sit on beanbag chairs in a circle, Apple PowerBooks on their laps.
Cables flow off the chairs and into the floor panels.
The students peer into their screens and clatter away at their keyboards. It looks like a study group in someone's dorm room. Then one student leans way back, stretching, smiling a cautious smile. He's the person whose paper was just read, and now everybody is going to criticize it. Beanbags are only one option that professors have in this classroom.