To enable the London School of Economics to continue to improve the education of senior urban professionals during the pandemic and shift to hybrid communication, the school turned to the Shure Microflex Complete Wireless solution and AVer’s PTC310H PTZ camera to ensure each student and teacher are heard equally.
The London School of Economics (LSE) runs the Executive MSc in Cities, an 18-month modular education program for senior urban professionals who want to better understand an deliver change in cities, but the COVID-19 pandemic was a major obstacle since many of the school’s students are international. The program recruits 25-30 students each year, the majority of whom are based in the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia, so attending five-week teaching modules while travel restrictions were in place was not possible.
However, the collaboration solutions the school adopted allowed those international students to be part of the course, with traditional lectures being replaced with blended learning materials and reworked modules to emphasize classroom discussion and peer-to-peer information exchange.
The school wanted to dissolve the boundary between in-person and remote participants to enable natural-feeling interaction during classroom discussion, which necessitated a fully scalable, flexible and user-friendly system that could be quickly deployed.
Inputs from the Shure Microflex Complete Wireless (MXCW) solution were assigned to DANTE channels which were fed into the P300, and then into the AVer PTZ link software to help eliminate unwanted and distracting noise. In addition, the AVer PTC310H PTZ camera provides audio-tracking features so in-room participants are heard by remote participants.
“For me, the biggest accomplishment is that the technology largely goes unnoticed by the faculty and students,” said Jim Osbourne, executive MSc manager of the LSE Cities program.
The LSE campus includes about 30 buildings between Kingsway and Aldwych, while the LCE Cities center is located in London and is the only university in the country dedicated to the study and research of social sciences. The LSE is typically ranked among the top UK universities and the top 50 globally, so finding a solution to help the school retain its international recognition during the pandemic was critical.
“The London School of Economics is one of the most prestigious universities worldwide and its educational standards are extremely high. For this reason, it was important to deliver a solution that could help remain the program and lectures with the same quality, but in a hybrid format”, said Carys Green, regional sales manager for UK at Shure, in statement. “Microflex Complete Wireless was the most suitable system for the Executive MSc in Cities, and we are proud to help the institution on its transition to a hybrid-flex teaching format by delivering impeccable audio.”
The school now benefits from a portable, powerful and fully scalable hybrid learning system that enables the program to provide cutting-edge educational material while maintaining the natural-feeling classroom discussion for which the program is known.
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