Students from nearly every college and department on campus who are taking classes in the larger rooms of some buildings will have the chance to use an abundance of new technology this year.
Fifteen so-called electronic classrooms in ten buildings on campus have been updated to help students and faculty get the most out of the technology in these rooms, Bill Cahoe, director of university teleplex, said.
"We wanted to make sure they had the best media at their fingertips," Cahoe said.
Student technology fees covered the cost of the equipment and installation, which totaled about $55,000, he said.
Cahoe also said that faculty who teach in the rooms had been mentioning the need for some changes with the technology because it wasn't working correctly, and most of the rooms were older and had not been renovated in a while, anyway.
The most significant change made to the classrooms is the installation of an AMX controller, which is a large touch screen that controls all technology in the room.
This new control system is a great improvement from having switch boxes that change the inputs from the computers to the DVD and VHS machines and still more separate controls for the sound and lights in the room, Cahoe said.
An instructor can now have three computers on with information for class and can easily switch back and forth among them without taking time away from class, Gary Pavlechko, director of teaching technology, said.
Aside from the hopefully easy use of the system, troubleshooting should be much easier than it has been in the past, O'Neal Smitherman, vice president for information technology, said.
By simply touching a certain part of the screen, the instructor can have someone on the phone to help talk them through any problems, Smitherman said.
He also said that the technology helper will be able to fix the problem from anywhere on campus using a laptop computer if talking to the professor won't work, which will mean less time wasted in class waiting for someone to get to the room to fix the problem.
Throughout the years, these large classrooms have had minor changes and updates, but none of the updates has been as comprehensive as the new changes, Smitherman said.
"It was brought to our attention about a year ago that this was a problem," Cahoe said.
Aside from the faculty who teach in the rooms, many deans of the university's colleges had requested that the technology be updated, Smitherman said.
Having faculty give input about the new system really helped it become as useful as it is now, Pavlechko said.
Once all the details of the system and any changes had been finished, the staff who would be using these rooms were sent to a conference called Infocomm, during which they learned how to use the new equipment, Cahoe said.
In February, the unit was completed, and faculty members and all department chairs took a look at it and gave suggestions. Then some redesigning took place, and the units were installed over the summer.
About 150 faculty from a variety of departments will be using these rooms for the Fall and Spring semesters, Smitherman said.
More than 100 faculty members have been oriented to the new system so far, Pavlechko said.
The orientation sessions involve a lot more than just talking about the equipment; they also focus on new teaching styles that can be used with the new technology, he said.
Cahoe also said the rooms to be updated were chosen by size, and most of them are used by a lot of different departments regardless of what buildings they are in.
"So many students use [the rooms], so we wanted them to reflect the technology on campus," Smitherman said.
Aside from the 15 large electronic rooms, more than 200 classrooms have projection systems, and the university is continuing to add more, Smitherman said.
He also said that one of the goals of the updates done on the rooms was to get students to use technology now in ways that everyone will soon be using it.
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