Central Arizona College Invests in Crestron Gear, Mobile Furniture for Collaborative Classrooms

“Students can do it in small groups, with the whole class, and yet the instructors do not lose the control they have over the class,” she says. “Instead of students being on their phones while instruction was going on, they’re engaged within the instruction on their phones and other devices. It gives them a better experience.”

Halloran says the college worked hard to make positive changes while keeping things familiar, especially for instructors.

“We’ve received favorable feedback that the collaborative rooms are adaptable to the different teaching style of the instructors,” she says. “It was important that the technology did not drive or change the teaching styles of our instructors but could accommodate enhancements and different collaboration methods of instruction, if desired.

“We were very conscious about making it a modular enhancement above the existing technology we had across the district.  This would empower any instructor to come into a collaborative room and have familiarity with the room’s operation. And we could provide training to help them use the more advanced features.”

Halloran and Jonathan Gill, Lead Program and Consultant at GSAA at Central Arizona College integrated the technology with a small, on-campus integration team. They developed standardization, helped manage remote support and completed the “up front” work.

Brenda Brook, Education Market Development Manager at Crestron says when she visited the college during installation, the integration team often consisted of only three people.

“They’ve empowered themselves to design their systems to establish standards and to make systems that are easy to use,” she says.

Halloran says it also helped that Central Arizona College was already a “Crestron College,” and knew what to expect with the technology and support.

She says the school grew as Crestron grew.

“We had standardized and chosen Crestron and we sort of grew with Crestron,” she says.  “[We] were familiar with how their technology looked, how it felt, how it behaved, and we kept incorporating Creston because it allowed us to interface with classroom technology standards.”

Gill says the final touches to the install included hiring a professional to blend the college’s curriculum with the new technology. He says the goal of syncing the two together will keep instructors and students happy, especially since the technology will be here for the long haul.

“It is needed so that the instructors are more adventurous and start using the rooms,” he says. “We don’t see the technology changing; we just see more people using the technology and coming up with greater things to incorporate that within the curriculum.”

Things to Consider Before Your College Builds

Plan & Budget

Brook says colleges looking to imitate Central Arizona College’s collaborative rooms should devise a plan and manage their budget accordingly. That way, decisions about the room’s design can be made easily.

“There’s a lot of planning that goes into building out a collaborative space,” she says. “A lot of it depends on school budget. In some campuses, they’ve bought static furniture, they don’t want the furniture to move, they don’t want the room to re-purpose in any other fashion. But that’s a decision that needs to be made.”

Know your network needs

Halloran says colleges need to educate themselves on what features and technologies their network needs before launching into construction. Identifying needs will reveal the size of the college’s demand, and how much time is needed to fulfill that demand.

“We knew what we needed to a degree, and San Tan was a new campus, so we didn’t have to fit new technology into old infrastructure, which can be a big challenge if you had to retrofit,” she says. “So we knew what needed to be done to accommodate easy installation of the classrooms, and we were able to work with our network person, and contract out for cable runs, projector mount installations and digital signage mounts.”

Set your standards

Halloran says it’s important for other colleges to set technology standards before the install. That way, support can reach across vast networks and scattered campuses, like Central Arizona College’s setup.

“We standardize across the district,” Halloran says. “We have five campuses and three centers and we stretch the ends of the whole county. We have one campus that is an hour and a half drive from the main campus, and we support that as well. By having technology that is standardized, we can troubleshoot over the phone, or use remote means such as RoomView Fusion.”

Be open to instructors’ feedback

Gill says that it’s key for colleges to listen to instructors’ feedback, especially since they are the ones who are in control of the classroom.

“The kind of feedback you’ll get will vary based on the teaching institution that you have,” he says. “What I suggest for higher learning institutions is to make sure that the same instructors get the same room every year. That way, they can get used to it, they can adapt to it, and even if they’re teaching different kinds of classes, they already have a mindset that’s wrapped around the way they work.”

Test out the furniture

Gill says that testing out new furniture is sometimes over-looked before an installation is completed. He says that colleges should test out furniture in case any pieces are damaged, and to make sure they got what they wanted.

“Actually sit at the desk and pull the drawers out and try to pretend like you’re actually involved with the furniture before you buy it,” he says. “It’s hard to go back on furniture.”

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