The new Integrated Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School just might be the ultimate collaborative classroom.
ADTECH Systems used a combination of software and matrix switching to allow instructors to display images from any combination of almost 160 computer and video sources on six projectors and 17 large-screen LCD monitors.
We became involved in this project during the winter of 2009/2010. In a series of meetings over several months, we helped instructors and staff of the UMASS pathology department plan the classroom, its AV systems and the switching system.
In many ways this was like any design/build project, but the needs analysis was much more involved and the finished system, designed to support very dynamic teaching methods, was complex.
The new classroom, completed during the summer of 2010, is divisible into three sections with movable walls and can be used in sections or together as a single room with a combined audio and video system.
Each section has its own lectern with built-in Macintosh and Windows computers, a document camera, microphone and control screen, and each has tables for six student workgroups with additional PC inputs. There are two projectors and six LCD monitors in each section.
Students can view various types of instructional material on their own monitor or use the appropriate monitors or projectors to present to a section of the classroom or to the entire classroom. Three digital matrix switchers, acting together and controlled by Crestron touchpanels on each lectern, make it easy to send any source to any combination of projectors and monitors in the room. All components are high definition and all signal paths purely digital.
Once we had worked out all of the requirements of the system, our AV engineering people went to work on detailed schematics and installation drawings. Our buying group purchased the necessary equipment and software, our programmers began writing code and our fabrication department assembled the lecterns and equipment racks. Our installation group began pulling cable at the job site and, once the carpenters, electricians and painters were finished, they installed the lecterns, racks, speakers and displays. The final step was training the Medical Center’s professors on the use of the new systems and their IT staff on how to support it. As is our practice, we provided full documentation, as-built drawings and user manuals.
Read more about the UMASS AV system in
Sound & Communications Magazine