     Editorial Nebraska Blueprint at the ECMA awards
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To most students on campus, Othmer Hall is just another addition to the Nebraska Hall and Walter Scott Engineering Center buildings—more space for the College of Engineering & Technology. Some students already have seen that Othmer 105, 106 and 110 are brimming with contemporary-looking displays and setups. The students who have attended classes in these rooms have probably only been able to see the projectors in action. Although Othmer 106 is used largely as a general-purpose room, Information Services Classroom Technology employees have worked with the College to give this classroom several noteworthy features.
“We can do a lot with [Room 106],” said Steve Colonna, a Classroom Technology Specialist for Information Services at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “It has a lot of functionality.” Currently, however, students may not experience the full effect of Othmer 106. The SMART Board is a digital whiteboard that allows instructors to write on a virtual notepad or over the projected computer screen. This technology has not yet been fully utilized due to some practicality issues that professors have experienced. However, another SMART Technologies product called the Sympodium has received very positive feedback. “I would think in most situations, this would be a lot better,” Colonna said. With the Sympodium, professors can face the class while “writing” on a flat screen monitor. Those images are then projected overhead so students can take notes. With the SMART Boards, professors might have had trouble accurately seeing what they are projecting.
In all of the technology-enhanced rooms of Othmer, there are AMX touch panels to control the audio and visual inputs and outputs. The main output is a powerful 3500 lm, insulation-type projector. Any input can be run on any output, thanks to a matrix switcher at the center of all the connections. The panel in Room 106 also can be used to control the audio from microphones dispersed throughout the rows of seating. The main purpose for these microphones is to pick up student questions during distance learning classes. For this feature, the class would have a director in the room above the lecture hall to control camera movements and certain aspects of the audio features. In the near future the distance learning capabilities of Othmer will be used actively as Rooms 105, 106, and 110 all are distance learning enabled. The cameras in the rooms can transmit data to other locations and the projectors and televisions can pull in sites from around the world to view. In Rooms 105 and 110, the multiple outputs allow views of multiple distance learning sites simultaneously. “We’ve tried to eliminate the processing in this room,” Colonna said. Students and professors only see the inputs and outputs of these fully wired workspaces. All of the computing technology is located in a small, adjacent room that holds PCs, Macintoshes, DVD players, VCRs to record lectures for future reference, and the Polycom units for videoconferencing. Because there are no computer towers with disk drives in the classrooms, professors must be able to access their material electronically over the network. The AMX control panels also are wired so Information Technology staff members have access over the network for testing. IT staff members provide complete support, training, maintenance and upgrades , and are on call from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. every weekday to answer questions or train users. Student workers inspect the classrooms a few times a week to ensure functionality. Before every semester, IT provides an open house for professors to learn about the equipment and become more comfortable with the new technology.
Henzlik Hall Room 124 and Morill Hall Room 141 both have some of the newer technology in place so nonengineering students also can enjoy the benefits of a technology-rich classroom. Making improvements is an ongoing process, but that does not stop the classroom technology professionals from continuing to supply the University with high-tech equipment. In the classrooms of Othmer Hall, the future is now. For more information: |
Being able to see clearly is not the only friendly feature of the Sympodium. Any application run on a PC can run using this technology. The professors can choose multiple colors and highlighters using the computer stylus. This allows them to create new notes, as well as write electronic notes over any program including web browsers and presentation software. These same notes can be saved and distributed to students electronically if the lecturer so desires.
All of the equipment in these high-tech classrooms is scalable and interchangeable. One future addition to the video conferencing aspect of the system will be a component that allows streaming distance learning over the Internet via a web site. The current equipment installed will probably be used for about three years before any upgrades are made. One change that already has taken place is the phasing out of SMART Boards in favor of the Sympodiums. Another project in the works is the improvement of the AMX panels to make them more user-friendly. Currently, the panels are not entirely intuitive. The goal is to require pressing no more than two or three buttons to access any function.