University Business - May 2007 - (Page 58)

Digital signage vendors that cater to the education market include LG Electronics, Sony, NEC, 3M, Planar, and StrandVision. The Next Wave Just a year or two ago, all the buzz was about distance learning and video conferencing, but with technology changing as fast as a TeraGrid network, EduComm and InfoComm visitors will be on the lookout for what everyone will be talking about next. Looking at some current indicators, Valenti believes the Next Big Thing may actually be a small thing—that is, smallgroup collaborative learning. “We’re seeing the buzz in flat panel displays, the 42- to 50-inch size that multiple students can gather around and display their individual laptops on so they can work together in a digital domain,” he says. “I think we’ll see the demise of the large lecture room in the next decade or so. That activity is just too expensive and not very satisfying as a learning experience for most students. We’re going to see online streaming replace a lot of lecture, and we’re going to see class time being spent more in small groups, with active learning and collaborative learning.” Lemke agrees that advances in technology will go further in changing the way teaching and learning take place. “There are always departments that will be pushing the envelope, and a lot of that development of A/V applications will be in science and engineering. One interesting development that people are beginning to talk about is immersive technology,” he says. Lemke adds, “You can immerse a person or a classroom with technology that surrounds them, coming at them from many different directions in terms of video and audio, putting them more in a complete environment than a static flat screen can provide.” Health and engineering sciences have experimented with immersive learning with positive results. “Now with the rise in low-cost simulation technology, we’re seeing a huge boom on the medical education front,” says Valenti. “Immersive learning is probably still a decade or so out, but it’s going to be the next wave,” Valenti adds. “For you Star Trek fans, think early Holodeck. We’ll see immersive learning in the next 15 to 20 years as being pretty much the way a lot of people learn a lot of things.” Resources 3M, www.3m.com Accordent Technologies, www.accordent.com Apreso, www.apreso.com Barco, www.barco.com Christie Digital, www.christiedigital.com Dell, www.dell.com Epson, www.epson.com Hitachi, www.hitachi.com InfoComm International, www.infocomm.org LG Electronics, us.lge.com NEC, www.nec.com Optoma, www.optoma.com Panasonic, www.panasonic.com Planar, www.planar.com Polyvision, www.polyvision.com Sharp, www.sharp.com SMART, smarttech.com Sonic Foundry, sonicfoundry.com Sony, www.sony.com StrandVision, www.strandvision.com The Sextant Group, www.thesextantgroup.com Toshiba, www.toshiba.com VBrick, www.vbrick.com Vutec, www.vutec.com Smart A/V planning allows institutions to standardize what equipment is available in rooms of varying sizes. Digital signage has become so mainstream that InfoComm devotes an entire exhibit hall pavilion to it. The technology has found its way to numerous locations on colleges and universities because the message content can be easily changed. A visit to many modern campuses will reveal flat panel digital displays as well as LED “crawl” signs in almost every building. They are used to post campuswide messages, as well as local items such as event schedules, menus, and alerts. “They are finding a lot of use in multicampus universities,” says Lemke. The main campus can broadcast messages, and then each local campus can customize those messages. Advances in programming software have made message creation easier than ever, and digital signage has become popular in dining halls, student unions, libraries, and health centers. For some schools, digital signs have become additional revenue generators when local businesses are allowed to run advertisements between campus-centric messages. 58 | May 2007 universitybusiness.com http://www.3m.com http://www.accordent.com http://www.apreso.com http://www.barco.com http://www.christiedigital.com http://www.dell.com http://www.epson.com http://www.hitachi.com http://www.infocomm.org http://us.lge.com http://www.nec.com http://www.optoma.com http://www.panasonic.com http://www.planar.com http://www.polyvision.com http://www.sharp.com http://smarttech.com http://sonicfoundry.com http://www.sony.com http://www.strandvision.com http://www.thesextantgroup.com http://www.toshiba.com http://www.vbrick.com http://www.vutec.com http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2007

Contents
College Index
Advisory Board
Company Index
Editor's Note
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Money Matters
Marketing
Human Resources
Financial Aid
Community Colleges
The Innocents Abroad
The Big Business of Research
What’s New in A/V
The Kids Are All Right
Designing a Unified Campus
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - May 2007