More Smart Classrooms Ready for Fall

The University will upgrade three lecture rooms as “smart classrooms” with communication, collaboration and computing technologies and will upgrade four classrooms for laptop support.

Technology improvements will be completed in large lecture rooms, including Harris 107, Fisk 217 and Parkes 214. Enhancements for each room include a bright projector, a large screen, microphones, speakers, a mobile podium, and a touch-panel control.

Four classrooms will be enhanced to support laptops -- Kresge 3420, Parkes 213, Fisk 114 and Tech L221. These improvements will bring the total number of Registrar-controlled Smart Classrooms to 59, and there are plans to have more than 100 on the Evanston campus in the next three years.

"The response to smart classrooms has been very positive," said Bob Taylor, director of Information Technology's Academic Technologies. "We're on an accelerated schedule to make this technology available in as many places as we can."

"Flexibility is very important," said Taylor. "Lecturers can switch to annotate on a computer desktop or show a DVD clip with just the touch of a button." This is the guiding principle behind the 7-ROOM Smart Classroom support team, easy-to-understand touch panel design and accessible faculty training.

For more information about Smart Classrooms, to schedule a training session, or to obtain reservation information, visit the Smart Classroom Web site at http://www.at.northwestern.edu/ctg/classrooms/.

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