A Parent's Vision Comes to Life

Corinne Grousbeck said her initial plan for the Grousbeck Center for Students and Technology was to bring Perkins students into the “vernacular” of today’s culture, so heavily entrenched in technology. Read how she turned this idea into a 17,000-square-foot reality.

• Grousbeck Center Stories
• Putting the GCST To Good Use
• Breaking Ground

Interested in hosting an event at the Grousbeck Center?

Please contact the Operations Coordinator by phone, (617) 972-7788, or email GCST@Perkins.org.

The Whole Campus In His Hands

Steve Landau, the architect at Touch Graphics whose team developed Perkins' Talking Campus Model, says good design relies on getting into the head of the user.

Steve Landau of Touch Graphics Navigates Campus from the GCST

There are many ways to interact with the Talking Model. The Model’s surface is pressure-sensitive, and when you touch different locations, you hear names and descriptions of each place.

Perkins School design addresses multiple senses

The walls are mostly flat, for example, but now and then one is interrupted by a richly modeled panel. You can say to someone, “Meet me at the Bubble Wall,’’ or the “Wave Wall,’’ and then connect by touch.

Grousbeck Center Dedication

“The technology built into the GCST was only imagined a few decades ago,” said Perkins President Steven Rothstein. “We’ve gone from chalkboards to SMART Boards and from talking books on tape to iPad audio readers in one fantastic leap."

Veterans Day Opens Parents' Eyes to Technology

Parents convened in the GCST with three experts who, through each of their presentations that filled the flexible spaces, showed parents how technology could aid in their children’s education.

Grousbeck Center Mockup Educates Students

Perkins School for the Blind has a history of finding resourceful ways of educating its students. Inspired by the tactile construction board, which Shawmut presented as samples of building materials on a timeline of the processs during last year’s Lower School construction, the Grousbeck mockup took that idea one step further.

Educators from Africa Talk Technology

Sometimes the low and high tech solutions being used at Perkins present international educators with strategies they hadn't considered. Assistive devices are innovative teaching aids that they can adapt by using the materials they have at home to accomplish the same goal.

Grousbeck Center for Students and Technology Groundbreaking

At Perkins School for the Blind, the use of a simple tool – the shovel – launched the construction of a 17,000 square foot social and teaching center employing the most sophisticated high-tech tools available to people who are visually impaired.