Page 7 - OIT Progress Report: 2023 Edition

Classroom Technology:
Flexibility, Reliability, and Enhanced Technology
Supporting and maintaining approximately
300 classrooms for instruction is no small task. Each summer, a large batch of rooms receive upgrades or repairs to ensure they are ready for the Fall semester. Although the installation work occurs primarily during the summer months, the assessment and
planning phase for “
the work begins in
late Fall and heavily
involves the input and
recommendations
of our Faculty
Technology Council.
during presentations or discussions without losing valuable instructional time. Fortunately, we were able to accommodate both requests as we planned our work in over 130 rooms this summer.
Last year, we introduced the new Advanced Technology spaces in the Lyle School of
Engineering and Perkins School of Theology. As
a critical component of
the delivery of the Lyle AnywhereTM program, we converted five classrooms within the Engineering
school to this enhanced configuration. Lyle now has six of these advanced technology classrooms to facilitate their distance education programs for the Fall.
Behind the scenes, we continue to ensure that all shared classroom systems
are reporting into our remote alerting and management system. At this time, we have about 94% of rooms reporting. This allows us to proactively identify and resolve
maintenance issues as well as resolve classroom calls remotely whenever possible. We look forward to continuing our partnership with SMU faculty to enhance classroom instruction.
The Faculty
Technology Council
engages feedback
from the faculty
within their
respective school on
technology changes
or needs. This
year, we received
recommendations
to ensure all shared
classrooms had
the interactive
podium monitor for
annotation and digital whiteboarding. Additionally, they also requested that all shared classrooms
have the ability to wireless screencast content to the projector. This allows students (and faculty)
to quickly connect other devices to share content
Standardizing screencasting setups and interactive monitors across classrooms allows faculty to build those technologies into our teaching with the confidence that the same resources will be available in next year’s classroom.”
TIM CASSEDY, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND FACULTY TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL MEMBER
5 OIT PROGRESS REPORT 2023