The Golden Portal
Brimmer and May has arranged to host a Shared Studios Golden Portal on campus for one week in April. The Golden Portal, which will be set up in the Hastings Innovation Space for the week of April 13-17, is a contained space, typically a shipping container but for us a portable, inflatable cube, that is equipped with a full-body projection screen and camera.
The Shared Studios Portal will allow students to engage with people from across the country or around the world on topics such as arts and culture, current events, language, science and technology, research topics, world history, and more. This PK -12 initiative will match our faculty’s curriculum design and teaching expertise with a valuable and effective resource for learning for our students. It will be a wonderful opportunity for the school to pursue a significant part of its mission to “develop lifelong learners who are informed, engaged, and ethical citizens and leaders in our diverse world.”
Pursuit of a Portal
Our faculty was first introduced to Shared Studies when several members of the Middle and Upper School Humanities and Creative Arts Departments attended the “Humanities and Technology Workshop” at St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, Connecticut in the summer of 2018. Impressed by her brief exposure to the portal, Kathryn Lee, Director of Innovation, investigated the possibility of hosting a portal at Brimmer.
That fall, Ms. Lee led a group of faculty on a visit to nearby Andover, Massachusetts in order to learn about the Golden Portal hosted at Andover High School. Steve Chinosi, Director of Strategic Innovation for Andover Public Schools and the Office of Ingenuity, instructed the Brimmer team about the logistics, costs, and uses of hosting a portal at a school. He also offered the opportunity to experience the portal first-hand with a live 20-minute connection to the portal in Astana, Kazakhstan. The group returned to Chestnut Hill thoroughly impressed and with a goal of bringing a portal to our campus.
Together with Ms. Neely, Director of Global Studies, and Ms. Smith, Upper School English Teacher and co-coordinator of the Bissell-Grogan Symposium, Ms. Lee explored this option for the School. After further consultation with Mr. Chinosi and negotiation with Shared Studios, we gained approval to host a Golden Portal in April.
Today, our faculty was introduced to the Portal experience during a multi-faceted professional development half-day. With school in session as usual, Mr. Chinosi and his team gave our faculty an introduction to the portal experience by connecting to a youth center in Honduras. He followed up by facilitating a brain-storming session with our teachers so that they can begin to form plans and generate ideas for how best to use this resource with their classes when Brimmer hosts the portal two months from now.
Shared Studios and Portals Around the World
Shared Studies offers more than 40 sites world-wide that host its Golden Portals. The US currently hosts 18 established or upcoming Portal sites, and there are another 24 sites around the world. Other current global host sites include Montreal, Canada and Tampico, Mexico in North America, as well as La Paz, Bolivia and El Progresso, Honduras. Further afield and across the globe, Portal sites are located in Afghanistan, Greece, Jordan, Myanmar, Norway, and Rwanda, to name a few.
Shared Studios' mission and objectives in supporting and developing the use of the Golden Portals is “to create meaningful human connections between people separated by distance and difference. We bring communities together in immersive spaces to talk, dance, play, and collaborate as if in the same room. We imagine a world where people intentionally engage with people unlike themselves as a source of creativity, positivity, and strength.” More information about Shared Studios can be found at their website.
Brimmer and May School
69 Middlesex Road
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
617-566-7462
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
617-566-7462
As an inclusive private school community, Brimmer welcomes students who will increase the diversity of our school. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, or any other characteristic protected from discrimination under state or federal law, in the administration of our educational policies, admissions practices, financial aid decisions, and athletic and other school-administered programs.