Creating a smart digital classroom setup across the campus of an esteemed educational Institution with backend integration of all classrooms into the intranet and datacenter storage thereby providing a strong integrated digital classroom platform was the requirement. It also needed to be very easy to use for both the teachers and students by being very close to the physical experience but still delivering all the benefits of digitalisation. Moreover this solution was also meant to solve the problem of non-availability of faculty at times, better availability of and access to teachers /professors and their content by students. While it was required that the faculty and students experience improved interaction and involvement inside the classroom.
Thus, Comprehensive Consultancy did use an innovative mix of unique audio visual -touchscreen technology alongside datacenter technologies using the management and streaming servers on cloud and on LAN including local SAN storage.
Unlike in most places where people use interactive whiteboards and ultrashort throw projectors with a PC for delivering digital classroom content which is so cumbersome in practical usage that it seldom gets used on regular basis, Comprehensive Consultancy deployed a one touch start device – the high-end interactive Ultra 4 K Interactive Flat panel- with built in windows and android PC, integrated audio, integrated WiFi, built-in SSD storage with all requisite network connectivity. This took care of content delivery by replacing the whiteboard, the projector, desktop etc.
Comprehensive Consultancy integrated this with the backend intranet network management and streaming servers along with the data centre SAN storage to provide complete content management with archival retrieval and distribution facilities, thereby creating a very unique solution architecture which is the first of its kind in the country.
Prior to the solution deployment by Comprehensive Consultancy, the faculty would use a standard black/whiteboard and sometimes a projector to use a PPT for lecture delivery. The spontaneous content created on the blackboard had to be copied by students before the faculty wiped it clean. The PPT slides could be made available to students afterwards but only on email or offline basis requests or else it would remain as an island of information only to be used by the specific professor. Mostly not accessible after sometime (except for classrooms which had an interactive whiteboard with a projector and PC, UPS combination which was seldom used as it was cumbersome to switch on and align multiple devices, also it did not have LAN integration).
Post deployment, the blackboard writing, the PPT presentation, videos and any other content even contributed right then or earlier by students in the class can all be delivered from a single device at a time with much better visibility and audibility, while it could be easily shared, distributed and reused. One significant benefit to student among others is that they can interactively contribute from their devices and receive all intent digitally thereby focus on learning and not just copying information. Benefit to the management is that they can create a central repository of IP and content which grows over the years and makes it easy to substitute, to multiply or hold extra classes as and when needed.
very nice post; thank you so much