Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

InfoComm 2010 highlights changing nature of AV

InfoComm 2010 brought more than 30,000 people to Las Vegas last month.
InfoComm 2010 brought more than 30,000 people to Las Vegas last month.

“The AV industry is changing,” said Jeff Singer, marketing communications director for Crestron. “We have to redefine what AV is.”

Singer was speaking at the 2010 InfoComm exhibition, North America’s largest audio-visual (AV) technology show, held last month in Las Vegas. He was referring to how the lines between traditionally defined categories of products and services in the AV field are blurring—and never has that been more apparent than at this year’s show.

Unless they hired a systems integrator, for instance, school technology buyers used to deal with one vendor for classroom audio products, a separate vendor for digital signage, and yet other manufacturers for projectors and displays. At InfoComm 2010, however, it was possible to find education technology solutions that combined classroom audio with emergency alert, projectors with interactive pen displays, and even podiums with digital signage.…Read More

Other InfoComm 2010 exhibitor news

Broadcast Pix's Slate Portable is billed as a video 'control room in a box.'
Broadcast Pix's Slate Portable is billed as a video 'control room in a briefcase.'

Other news from InfoComm 2010 exhibitors included new developments in digital signage, interactive whiteboards and displays, and video capture and editing tools—including a video “control room in a briefcase.” Here are some of the highlights.

Digital signage solutions

Black Box Network Services demonstrated its line of iCOMPEL digital signage players for schools that want to alert or inform faculty, staff, and students in the hallways or on campus. Black Box’s signage comes with a ticker loop that can announce cancellations, sports scores, and schedule changes, among other announcements. And schools won’t be short on technical help: The company offers free, unlimited tech support, and it guarantees that calls will be answered in 30 seconds or less. An entry-level option, iCOMPEL UltraLite, is ideal for schools looking for single-screen applications or multiple screens displaying the same content, starting at $1,245. Black Box signage also comes with a 45-day unconditional return policy.…Read More

Projectors becoming more interactive

 

BenQ's MP780 ST projector takes advantage of TI's new interactive DLP technology.
BenQ's MP780 ST projector takes advantage of TI's new interactive DLP technology.

 

Earlier this year, Epson and Boxlight made news when they introduced projectors that can turn virtually any surface into an interactive whiteboard (IWB). The development meant that schools no longer have to buy separate hardware to enjoy the benefits of IWBs, whose interactive surface and ability to engage students have made them popular in classrooms.…Read More

3D content for education on the rise

Most of the 3D content now available for education targets math and science.
Most of the 3D content now available for education targets math and science.

At last year’s InfoComm, North America’s largest conference dedicated to audio-visual (AV) technologies, the big story was the emergence of 3D projectors for education. But while several companies demonstrated projectors that could display three-dimensional images with the help of special glasses, at the time there was not a lot of educational content available to justify an investment in 3D projectors for the classroom.

Fast forward to this year’s conference, held last month in Las Vegas, and that has changed.

At least a dozen companies now offer three-dimensional learning content, according to industry sources, and some of the major players in the educational video market are rumored to be developing 3D content as well.…Read More

Solutions aim to ease ed-tech deployment

Bretford's new Juice power system is an easy way for schools to connect up to eight computers to a single outlet.
Bretford's new Juice power system is an easy way for schools to power up to eight computers from a single outlet.

Flexibility was a key theme at the 2010 InfoComm conference in Las Vegas, North America’s largest audio-visual (AV) technology show, where a number of companies demonstrated products intended to help schools deploy education technology more easily.

With more than 60 years of experience in designing furniture that helps students learn, Bretford showcased a number of solutions aimed at simplifying the integration of technology into the classroom. These included laptop carts that can intelligently sense how much power is needed to charge the units and deliver just enough power to meet these needs, as well as a clutter-free system for delivering power to as many as eight computer workstations from a single electrical outlet.

Bretford also unveiled a first-of-its-kind lectern with a built-in, 40-inch flat-panel display on the front, designed to highlight speaker information or reinforce key lecture concepts, and it announced a contest in which it will give away more than $17,000 worth of classroom furniture to one lucky school.…Read More

New system combines classroom audio, emergency alert

A new system could help campuses respond to emergencies much quicker.
A new system could help campuses respond to emergencies much quicker.

A new classroom product that combines sound amplification, lecture capture, and emergency alert capabilities in a single system could have a big impact on the safety of K-12 and higher-education classrooms.

The Safe Security system, from Panasonic and Audio Enhancement, features a button on a microphone worn around the instructor’s neck that, when pressed, sends a silent alarm to a school’s central offices and to administrators. Once alerted, school leaders have access to a live video feed courtesy of a networked camera inside the classroom, as well as to the audio feed captured on the microphone, and they can immediately assess what type of emergency is occurring in the classroom.

Jeff Anderson, president of Audio Enhancement, said many teachers wear wireless microphones around their necks as part of standard classroom audio systems, and incorporating a built-in security alert system was a logical next step.…Read More

How colleges can drive traffic to their web sites

Colleges should closely track their web site's "bounce rate," Joly said.
Colleges should closely track their web site's "bounce rate," Joly said.

Digital marketing guru Karine Joly told a group of college technology officials that it’s time for them to stop relying on gut instincts when devising ways to increase web traffic and start relying on data that can attract prospective students online.

Joly spoke during a June 8 session at the annual EduComm conference in Las Vegas, where 800 campus IT officials and staffers attended workshops and keynotes addressing the latest in education technology. The conference ended June 9.

Joly, founder of Higher Ed Experts, an online service offering professional development, released a survey in May showing that three out of four university IT officials said they spent fewer than two hours a week on web site analytics, or studying their school’s web site traffic, including who is visiting the site and which search words guide them to the site.…Read More

Video technologies will abound at InfoComm 2010

 

Video technologies such as Cisco's telepresence will be a main conference focus.
Video technologies such as Cisco's telepresence will be a main conference focus.

InfoComm 2010 will showcase integrated display, projection, audio, conferencing, lighting and staging, digital signage, and communications system solutions, June 9-11, 2010, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Marthin De Beer, senior vice president of Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Business Group, will deliver the first InfoComm keynote address on June 8 at the Las Vegas Hilton.  De Beer’s address will cover how leveraging video as the means to collaborate and share information on any device, any place, anywhere, anytime gives businesses competitive and cost-saving advantages.…Read More

LEDs light up InfoComm 2009

School administrators, teachers, and professors were among thousands at the InfoComm audio-video conference in Orlando June 15-19, where technology vendors unveiled the latest in digital signage hardware and software and LED projectors that could prove energy and cost efficient.

Projectors powered by LED (Light Emitting Diodes) technology, rather than the traditional lamp, have displayed longer life and usually require less maintenance than lamps, which often need replaced.

Some companies have introduced LED ultra-portable projectors, which weigh less than 4 pounds apiece, but LED projector costs have proven prohibitive during the current recession, according to an industry report published in March by Insight Media. The report said that lamp projectors could remain popular because they are more affordable, especially for schools and universities that have seen operating budgets slashed in 2009.…Read More