Parr instead became an apostle of change. In a wired classroom on a snowyafternoon, he is giving a talk on obesity,throwing PowerPoint slides, documents,and videos up on the big screens. He’swearing a tiny wireless microphone,clipped to his dress shirt. His lecture isbeing recorded for a set of DVD’s he isputting together. If he wanted to, hecould pull in a live video of an expertfrom miles away, or stream his lectureonto the Web.Like other professors at CentralMichigan, Mr. Parr has found that teach-ing in a wired environment requiresmore preparation and planning, alongwith old-fashioned teaching experienceat the rare times when the technologybreaks down. But the professors hereseem to have found new energy in theirwork. Mr. Parr didn’t want to go intoretirement without taking advantage of the new technology and teaching meth-ods that are growing more prominent inhigher education.“I want my last threeyears to be the most exciting,” he says.“Iwant to go out on top of my game.”Warren Arbogast, president of ideaReserve, a consulting company thathelped design the building, says its tech-nology is not a glitzy add-on, but ismeant to be integrated into the learningprocess. Central Michigan officials“wanted a building that could takeadvantage of teachable moments,” hesays.“They are letting the academic goalsand the pedagogy drive the technology.Everyone talks about doing that, but fewreally do it.”
Health Tech
Richard J. Coluzzi, a higher-education-technology consultant in Glen Burnie,Md., says that over the past 15 yearsmany colleges have barely used theexpensive equipment they have installedin classroom buildings.“People were put-ting in technology just to say they hadtechnology,” he says. But in the pastthree years, as instructional hardwareand software alike have improved,“col-leges are really starting to embrace tech-nology in teaching.”Central Michigan’s building, whichopened last month, houses the publicuniversity’s health-professions program.Here the departments of communicationdisorders, health sciences, physical educa-tion, physical therapy, and psychology,among others, hold classes, provide facul-ty offices, and conduct research. Largevideo screens in many classrooms canproject a computer display, a snippet of video, or other media; cameras can cap-ture lectures for later viewing; andmicrophones and speakers can fosterinteraction with guest lecturers far away.Professors can control much of the tech-nology through a simple touch-screensystem on a podium.They can even use adigital pen to enter comments over what-ever is being projected on the videoscreens, just like John Madden outlininga play on
Monday Night Football.
Other rooms include state-of-the-artlaboratories, outfitted with digital cam-eras, along with observation rooms andholding pens for animal experiments;clinical wings for the communication-dis-orders and psychology departments; anda nearly completed virtual-reality room,where professors can study body move-ment and mechanics.All of the rooms feed into the build-ing’s technological nerve center, calledMaster Control. From this room, techni-cians can record lectures and save themon tape, burn them onto disks, or sendthem out over the Internet.
More Teachable Moments?
Marvis J. Lary, dean of the college,plans to use the new building to raise thevisibility of her programs. She says pro-fessors want to collaborate with col-leagues at institutions in Italy andFrance, sending videos of lectures over-seas. She also hopes that the college’stechnological advances will help it wingovernment grants for homeland-securi-
All wires lead to Master Control.
Fromhere, technicians can record a lecture inany of the classrooms and burn it onto adisk or stream it onto the Internet. Thecontrol room can also transmit a video of events in one room to a video screen inanother. And if a professor has trouble withthe hardware in a classroom, he or she canpush a button that alerts staff members inthis control room.
Anthony Dugal
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