eCommunicator for Faculty & Staff

2006 Faculty/Staff Edition - Volume 3 > Smart Classrooms

Classrooms Get Smart This Summer

June 2006

High-resolution images, a huge screen, and movie-quality sound—this may describe your fantasy for a home entertainment center, and it also describes many "smart" lecture rooms on campus. By this fall, faculty and students will enjoy another three lecture rooms with upgraded communication, collaboration, and computing technologies. In addition, four classrooms will be upgraded for laptop support.

"The response to smart classrooms has been very positive," said Bob Taylor, Director of NUIT's Academic Technologies. "So we're on an accelerated schedule to make this technology available in as many places as we can."

Stemming from a major initiative with the Provost's Classroom Committee, technology improvements will be completed in large lecture rooms including Harris 107, Fisk 217, and Parkes 214. Enhancements for each room include a bright projector, a large screen, microphones, speakers, a mobile podium, and a touch-panel control.

"Flexibility is very important," said Taylor. "Lecturers can switch to annotate on a computer desktop or show a DVD clip with just the touch of a button."

In addition, four classrooms will be enhanced to support laptops: Kresge 3420, Parkes 213, Fisk 114, and Tech L221. These improvements will bring the total number of Registrar-controlled Smart Classrooms to 59, and there are plans to have over 100 on campus in the next three years.

But it's not enough to just have the technology on campus, it's also important to make sure that it is easily used. This is the guiding principle behind the 7-ROOM Smart Classroom support team, easy-to-understand touch panel design, and accessible faculty training.

To find more information about Smart Classrooms, schedule a training session, or obtain reservation information, please visit the Smart Classroom Web site at http://www.at.northwestern.edu/ctg/classrooms/.

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