The trolley units were a success. Both teachers and students reported outstanding user experiences and the university was able to rapidly equip their learning spaces with a fully functional professional-grade solution at a very reasonable price point.
The university ordered 50 mobile cart solutions over the summer of 2020. By the end of October, they had ordered another 27, for a total of just over 75 solutions across three campuses.
“LU named them ‘CTUs’ for ‘Classroom Technology Unit,’” said Ramsey, adding that at ImageNet they like to think of them as Conference Technology Units for the broader possibilities. “It’s been an incredible solution for them.”
The units have met the critical need to connect remote students and gone beyond even that, noted chemistry professor Dr. Nisa Ganewatta, who uses the CTUs in all her classes:
“The CTUs are very useful in teaching subjects like chemistry and physical sciences, which have lots of calculations that need to be explained and worked out on the board to support student understanding of the materials. All the content, visualizations and videos are clearly visible and audible to both the students who join via Zoom and the students who attend classes in-person,” said Ganewatta, adding that “The myViewBoard app in these CTUs is tremendously helpful in the above tasks. Powerful speakers, microphones, and the camera in the unit completes its job!”
The university has so much faith in their ViewSonic-powered CTUs that they now use them for everything, including connecting remote participants for their Board of Regents meetings, said Nichols.
Department of English Professor, Wonderful Faison, points out the ViewSonic ViewBoard display’s central role in remote learning:
“The CTUs give instructors a more realistic face-to-face classroom feel during remote learning. The size of the display lets instructors see their entire class, which makes the lecture more organic. Other CTU functions also allow instructors to write notes and highlight specific material to focus student’s attention on specific ideas or concepts.”
Biology professor, Dr. Julia Reed, praised the ViewSonic CTUs for their ability to share lab class content with remote students.
“I use a CTU for every Human Anatomy class, and they’re critical for lab classes,” said Reed. “The wide-angle camera enables my virtual students to see the bones, models and other objects that I present to the students that are present in class. I can walk around the classroom and students at home can see exactly what I’m doing.”
Not only does the innovative solution meet and exceed instructor needs, but its unique form also allowed the university to deploy it in time for the freshman class re-entry for the 2020-2021 school year.
“If we had gone the traditional route of renovating and installing custom solutions for each type of classroom, we might still be in implementation stages,” said Nichols. “With this fully commercial-grade system on a cart, we were able to equip all 75 lecture halls and classrooms within 6 months. We are very grateful to President Smith, Mrs. Powell, and Dean Snavely for their hard work, diligent efforts and prowess – and most especially for their partnership and trust to award ImageNet such an exciting and monumental project!”
The only thing a room needs, added Ramsey, is a wall outlet and available Wi-Fi. Outside of that, the mobile cart is an entire professional, commercial-grade videoconferencing system on a rolling platform.
“We’re thrilled that Langston has been so happy with it,” said Nichols, noting that they’ve already had interest in the solution from other clients. “The ViewSonic ViewBoard IFP7550 75” 4K interactive flat panel display with slot-in PC alone gives clients an entire computer and with all the controls built-in on the cart.”
Despite the speed of deployment, Ramsey noted that this in no way represents a compromise in quality.
“There are some great ‘icing on the cake’ outcomes from this solution as well,” he said. “Langston University got all the upgraded professional-grade technology that they needed at an excellent price point. This increased the number of units they could place and assures them a long-term return on investment, with a high-quality product that will be long lasting and adaptable.”
What’s more, he added, these commercial-grade mobile technology units could be easily transformed into stationary, professional wall-mounted solutions at any time, for just the cost of additional labor.
“If Langston ever wants to create a clean, seamless, wall-mounted environment in any of the rooms, we can do that with a few ancillary parts,” said Ramsey. “On the other hand, the cart solution will never be useless. This solution represents a big value to all education sector clients with ‘technology on wheels.’”