Page 28 - Campus Technology, April/May 2017

AV TRENDS
Futuresource’s McIntyre-Brown expects to see a huge pick- up for collaboration boards in higher ed. “There’s a very clear usage driver,” he said, pointing to several vendors that have launched or announced big displays that allow people to connect wirelessly to the screen, share content and col- laborate nearby or far away, including Microsoft with Sur- face Hub, Sharp with Aquos Board and newer entrants Cisco with Spark Board and Google with Jamboard.
While interactive whiteboards haven’t gained much of a following in higher ed in the past, that could change. This new generation of collaboration boards addresses a big limitation the earlier one lacked: The instructor doesn’t have to be tethered to the board to work on it; he or she can move among the students.
4) Projector Tech Continues Improving
Because the rollout of flex classrooms at Salt Lake CC is taking place over three years, the college can upgrade its projectors to address “shortcomings” along the way, according to Shirkey. The latest model of BrightLink being installed: the 697Ui, a wireless ultra-short-throw interactive device. “We were always pushing for a higher resolution and brighter images,” he said. “Fortunately, in this latest model, they’re brighter — 4,400 lumens — and they also have WUXGA native resolution that’s high enough to really meet our demands for HDMI inputs.”
As Shirkey sees it, the advantage in going with interactive projectors over, say, LCDs is that the projectors can gener- ate much bigger images. “It’ll project an image up to 100 inches on the diagonal,” he noted. Second, “You have the ability to interact with the display. It becomes more active. You can use the annotation pens that come with the projec- tor, or your finger with the finger touch module, and go up and start annotating all over your displayed material.” Third, the projector comes with software that offers whiteboard screens for different subjects. “If you’re a math teacher, you can go up and have the students write out the entire math problem on the wall and save it as a JPG or PDF and e-mail it out to the rest of the class.”
Test said luminosity has become a big deal at Penn State. “High lumen output used to be something that was a nice to have, and it’s turned into a necessity, especially in rooms where we can’t control the lighting,” he explained. “We want to give people the flexibility to move around furniture and rear- range things. We can’t assume that they’re going to be sitting with nicely dimmed lights to see the projection screen.” To address that uncertainty, the university has adopted a bare- minimum standard of 6,500 lumens, but prefers projectors that are 7,500 and 8,000 lumens. “That enables us to have a nice, bright image even in a room where all the lights are on. People can do group work or other things, but they can still reference the screen without having to dim the lights.”4
Salt Lake Community College’s flex classrooms feature mobile furniture for pod work, wall-mounted interactive technology for each student group and a control panel for instructors to send content from themselves or any group to the entire room.
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | April/May 2017
Salt Lake City Community College