You wouldn’t likely walk into a modern higher education classroom and not see some sort of AV technology.
From projectors to interactive displays, document cameras and digital signage, most college lecture halls and classrooms provide educators and students with AV technology to help improve the education experience.
As great as technology is for teaching and learning, there are, of course, some technical challenges that arise when deploying and implementing multiple types of technologies and systems.
Illinois State, for example, was recently challenged with finding a solution that would allow faculty to easily switch between different video sources in 320 classrooms. In 2009, the University began implementing more tech systems into its classrooms, and wanted to ensure incident rates didn’t rise as more technology was installed.
The University found its solution in Kramer’s presentation switchers and scalers. After installing Kramer’s VP-728 9–Input ProScale Presentation Scaler/Switcher, VP-730 Presentation Switcher/Scaler, and VP-773A 8–Input HDMI & HDBaseT ProScale Presentation Switcher/Scaler with 2K support and audio power amplifier, Illinois State was able to convert all of the 320 classrooms to digital capabilities, while reducing system incident rates.
“As we ramped up our responsibilities, the number of times we had to go in and revisit rooms just kept dropping,” says Doug Smith, director, learning spaces and audio/visual technologies at Illinois State University. “The impact has been staggering.”
The Kramer switchers have allowed Smith to provide faculty with a standard set up and list of equipment for each classroom.
“[Faculty] has the exact same set up [in each room] where they can go from room to room and know what’s going to be there, such as a computer, document camera and the like, and Kramer has the switching core. We put a standard user interface in and they know that if they press ‘computer’, the magic happens and the computer shows up on their projector, and they don’t have to think about it,” says Smith.
Even though the number of rooms Smith and his team manage has skyrocketed since 2009, the incident rate has plummeted. Smith also says the Kramer solution has saved the University money on top of reducing incident rates.
“The product is rock-solid, the [Kramer] support is rock-solid and [the solution] saves me money every time I turn around,” says Smith.
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