COLLEGE PARK, MD (March, 2017) – Educational Technology Services is pleased to announce that we will be getting upgraded equipment and capabilities in all 10 of the technology-enabled general-purpose classrooms (GPCs) in the Benjamin Building.
Detailed plans are still being finalized, but we received confirmation earlier in March that the Teaching Facilities Committee approved funding for upgrades and installation. In addition to retaining most of the existing capabilities, there will also be a dedicated document camera, wall-mounted instructor-capture camera, tethered, wheeled teaching consoles (replacing the fixed desks), and HDMI projection capability.
This will mean a disruption to classes in Benjamin during the summer months; however, DIT will be working directly with campus scheduling to make sure that the interruptions are minimized.
This project began in November of 2016, with an inquiry to DIT about where we were on the campus schedule for upgrades. That led to an evaluation of our classrooms by technology facilities personnel, in conjunction with internal feedback on tier-one, technology desk interventions. Finally, we utilized feedback from the annual Technology Use and Support Survey to show support for our internal data.
Special thanks to Joe Robertson for pulling together the technology desk data for the proposal request, and to Fran Bass, manager with DIT’s Learning Technology Design group, for shepherding our proposal through the various working groups and committees to a successful conclusion.