Utah State University constructed a model teaching space for - PDF document

Slide 1 Utah State University constructed a model teaching space for Synchronous Distance Learning. In this classroom we Prototype classroom attempted to incorporate project best practices of interior, aesthetic, Massive H.323 and the coming Digital Zombie Apocalypse: Adapting business communications technology to the technical and ergonomic design and classroom in a homebuilt Telepresence project. leading edge technology for interactive video conferencing. The room allows the instructor to interact as seamlessly as possible with both distant and local students. Slide 2 My Background. I am currently the senior Classroom and Systems Design Specialist at Utah State University.  Theatrical Lighting  Live sound engineering  Video Production There are two of us on staff, supported Jim Wellings  Freelance TV audio and video Classroom and Systems Design Specialist engineer Utah State University IT by one installer/service technician and  Systems design and integration one admin assistant. We have one other installer/service tech at our sister school, USU Eastern. Our distance learning school – RCDE – has their own staff who maintain and install most of their classrooms with one designer/installer and one operations supervisor/trainer Slide 3 DZA? What the heck is he talking about? Well, I wanted to get your Digital Zombie Apocalypse? attention….. These are the main points I  Design and implementation of a large H.323 distance learning classroom project at Utah State University will discuss today –  Telepresence in a classroom  Challenges of digital technology and systems integration The last item - the challenges of the digital conversion and integration is where the zombie apocalypse comes in. We have begun a digital transition in classroom systems across our campus. All our projects in the last year have had some headache - inducing digital component, and I will talk a little about some of those challenges later, when I

discuss the recent upgrade in our project room Slide 4 Don’t let it eat your brains…. Digital Zombie Apocalypse? It‟s Here…. Slide 5 The history of USU’s distance learning program History USU Distance Learning Program

Slide 6 USU’s distance learning program has been around since the 90’s using various technologies for synchronous USU Distance  Converted from digital satellite in Learning 2007  Installed 156 H.323 receive learning. Our largest content delivery Program classrooms and 20 teaching History classrooms system was digital satellite between  Migrated all legacy classes Fall 2007 1997 and 2007 In the summer of 2007 we converted the entire system from satellite to H.323, building 156 sites in just a few months – most during summer break. Entire classload migrated by fall semester. Slide 7 Current system. USU is a stakeholder in UEN, our state sponsored ISP, along  Utah Education Network: with other Utah higher ed and USU Distance  10 gig network backbone Learning  480 bridge ports- 12 40-port secondary ed institutions. All Utah High Program MCU‟s  120 HD ports Current System:  360 SD ports Supported by the Utah Education Schools and universities have H.323 Network  712 registered end points  198 registered software-based SIP sites on the UEN network, along with clients some state government agencies Slide 8 In march of this year – usage stats USU Distance Learning  Utah Education Network stats in Program March 2011:  1668 higher ed classes Current System: Supported by the Utah Education  5905 events connected Network

Slide 9 Regional Campuses and Distance Education is the USU entity that administers the distance learning USU Distance  Of 712 registered endpoints, 408 Learning are USU sites.  375 sections/343 courses program Program  Degrees available via IVC: USU Regional Campuses and  1 EHD (Doctor of Education) Distance Education  10 Masters  15 Bachelors Slide 10 A little about the ‘standard’ H.323 classroom design. Standard Receive Room Design Room Design Slide 11 Rooms are separated into two main categories – Receive rooms and  Receive room - no instructor desk Teaching rooms.  Largely Tandberg (Cisco) MXP990 H.239 is a dual - stream sub protocol Room Design  H.239 presentation support for Standard Receive Room Design laptops  Most codecs with internal 4-port supported by H.323. It allows a MCU  Widescreen display separate motion video stream along with a secondary high resolution stream. Polycom calls this ‘People plus content’ Tandberg – Duo Video, Lifesize - Dual Stream All of our classrooms support H.239

Slide 12 The most common receive site Room Design Standard Receive Room Design Slide 13 Standard Teaching classroom. All the features of the receive room plus….  Tandberg (Cisco) 3000 MXP, C60, C40  Projector/Screen  Document Camera Room Design  PC with pen tablet Smartboard Standard Teaching Classroom  DVD/VCR Design  Two cameras  Crestron control system Slide 14 Instructor monitor located on console to view distant sites Room Design Standard Teaching Classroom Design

Slide 15 Camera on back wall Room Design Standard Teaching Classroom Design Slide 16 Another one. Ceiling mounted monitor. Room Design Standard Teaching Classroom Design Slide 17 As we talk about constructing systems, we need to refer to the engineering project triangle. A Venn diagram with project characteristics Room Design Engineering Project Triangle

Slide 18 Pick any two…. Room Design - Pick any Two Slide 19 USU installed rooms typically are designed for reliability, with common components and design across multiple  Designed for reliability  Fast and easy construction installations, to meet a minimum Room Design  Features and design common Common teaching room across most rooms characteristics quality and performance standard, at a  Minimal attention paid to aesthetics and production values reasonable cost. What aesthetics? Not in the budget. Slide 20 For our prototype classroom project, we wanted to push beyond the usual and demonstrate what was possible. We needed to correct the common Goals problems with our designs and address Prototype Classroom Project requirements, issues with current designs, and the wish lists of faculty, largely in the department of Special Education since they would be the primary users.

Slide 21 Special education had past experience with our satellite system, which they hated. One way video, audio delay….. Prototype  High Expectations Classroom  Previous negative experience and with the standard H.323 classroom Project  Replace and improve upon their Goals experimental homebuilt system which they hated only a little less. Low (Guerrilla telepresence) resolution video and blurry faces, or slow switching and poor interaction. SPED expectations were built upon a homebuilt test project which expanded a point to point technology to support a point to multipoint model Slide 22 It looked something like this: They had a stack of 9 video monitors driven by 9 pc’s with a Sorenson conferencing Prototype Classroom capture/display card in each. The Project Goals instructor was captured by a single camera, distributed to the 9 pc’s, The 9 sites were viewed on individual monitors for a higher resolution and better experience than the standard bridged H.323 event. Slide 23 With system designs, things tend to default to the lowest common denominator, and are usually done on the cheap, mostly by necessity. We needed to ‘kick it up a notch’. This project would not be cheap, although one of the goals would be to prove that quality could be improved affordably.

Slide 24 *As close to state of the art as is ever possible. Our associates at UEN began  State of the art* technology using the term ‘bleeding edge’ when Prototype  Best Practices Model:  Facility should be a model of best Classroom practices of Interior, aesthetic, technical and ergonomic design referring to this project…. Uh Oh. Project  Current practices evaluated and discarded if necessary Goals  Eye contact and viewing angles as Bleeding edge of course is a slice above natural as possible  No physical barriers  Freedom of movement even cutting edge, pun intended.  Affordable* *Affordable. Another asterisk. Everything is relative, and fortunately we had three financial partners Slide 25 The Functional Requirements. The room must incorporate these features * What really is telepresence? More in Prototype Classroom  High resolution video  Space flexible a moment. Project  Telepresence features* Functional Requirements  Incorporate digital signal paths where possible Slide 26 More Functional Requirements. The room must incorporate these features Prototype  Full screen views of three sites Classroom simultaneously Project  Split views (continous presence Functional Requirements views) of 6 to 8 sites simultaneously  High data rate calling