Are ‘Smart’ Classrooms the Future?

Indiana University explores that question by bringing together tech partners and university leaders to share ideas on how to design classrooms that make better use of faculty and student time.

By Julie Johnston 10/31/18 https://campustechnology.com/articles/2018/10/31/are-smart-classrooms-the-future.aspx

• Untether instructors from the room’s podium, allowing them control from anywhere in the room;
• Streamline the start of class, including biometric login to the room’s technology, behind-the-scenes routing of course content to room displays, control of lights and automatic attendance taking;
• Offer whiteboards that can be captured, routed to different displays in the room and saved for future viewing and editing;
• Provide small-group collaboration displays and the ability to easily route content to and from these displays; and
• Deliver these features through a simple, user-friendly and reliable room/technology interface.

Key players from Crestron, Google, Sony, Steelcase and Spectrum met with Indiana University faculty, technologists and architects to generate new ideas related to current and emerging technologies. Activities included collaborative brainstorming focusing on these questions:

• What else can we do to create the classroom of the future?
• What current technology exists to solve these problems?
• What could be developed that doesn’t yet exist?
• What’s next?

top five findings:

• Screenless and biometric technology will play an important role in the evolution of classrooms in higher education. We plan to research how voice activation and other Internet of Things technologies can streamline the process for faculty and students.
• The entire classroom will become a space for student activity and brainstorming; walls, windows, desks and all activities are easily captured to the cloud, allowing conversations to continue outside of class or at the next class meeting.
• Technology will be leveraged to include advance automation for a variety of tasks, so the faculty member is released from duties to focus on teaching.
• The technology will become invisible to the process and enhance and customize the experience for the learner.
• Virtual assistants could play an important role in providing students with a supported experience throughout their entire campus career.

A full report on the summit findings is available here.

Further, this article

Kelly, B. R., & 10/11/17. (n.d.). Faculty Predict Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality Will Be Key to Ed Tech in 10 Years -. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from https://campustechnology.com/articles/2017/10/11/faculty-predict-virtual-augmented-mixed-reality-will-be-key-to-ed-tech-in-10-years.aspx

My note:

In September 2015, the back-then library dean (they change every 2-3 years) requested a committee of librarians to meet and discuss the remodeling of Miller Center 2018. By that time the SCSU CIO was asserting the BYOx as a new policy for SCSU. BYOx in essence means the necessity for stronger (wider) WiFI pipe. Based on that assertion, I, Plamen Miltenoff, was insisting to shift the cost of hardware (computers, laptops) to infrastructure (more WiFi nods in the room and around it) and prepare for the upcoming IoT by learning to remodel our syllabi for mobile devices and use those (students) mobile devices, rather squander University money on hardware. At least one faculty member from the committee honestly admitted she has no idea about IoT and respectively the merit of my proposal. Thus, my proposal was completely disregarded by the self-nominated chair of the committee of librarians, who pushed for her idea to replace the desktops with a cart of laptops (a very 2010 idea, which by 2015 was already passe). As per Kelly (2018) (second article above), it is obvious the failure of her proposal to the dean to choose laptops over mobile devices, considering that faculty DO see mobile devices completely replacing desktops and laptops; that faculty DO not see document cameras and overhead projectors as a tool to stay.
Here are the notes from September 2015 https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/09/25/mc218-remodel/
As are result, my IoT proposal as now reflected in the Johnston (2018) (first article above), did not make it even formally to the dean, hence the necessity to make it available through the blog.
The SCSU library thinking regarding physical remodeling of classrooms is behind its times and that costs money for the university, if that room needs to be remodeled again to be with the contemporary times.