Technology-Enabled Teaching >> If You Build It, We Should Come

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Technology-Enabled Teaching >> If You Build It, We Should Come

6/28/2005

By Will Craig

The Building

Large campus construction projects are often split into multiple design packages for different types of contractors, depending on the phase of the project. Each package has implications for technology.

The excavation and preliminary sitework package should be planned to allow for copper and/or fiber connectivity between the new building and the rest of campus. The extent to which the campus network is used for telephony/voice systems, or by security for monitoring cameras and alarms, and by facilities for monitoring building systems, will help determine the appropriate sizes, quantities, and channeling of in-ground pathways.

The building construction package, while often not containing much actual technology equipment, is the key to successful technology integration. What follows is a partial list of questions that should be asked in order to flush out the elements of the building construction design package that are essential to successful technology-enabled teaching:

Is there enough room for everything? Jeffrey Lee, telecom designer for the nationwide architecture firm HGA (www.hga.com), notes that “in some of our higher education projects, there’s an IT group to handle data servers, but each department wants its own servers under its control; they want a mini server room in their areas. Especially in the performing arts, each of that area’s studios needs space for equipment racks, or needs to have a control room nearby.” Clearly, space issues for technology equipment need to be dealt with in the program or early pre-design phases, not when the walls are going up.

Are things in the right place? Due to distance limitations of current copper-based LAN cabling, the relative positions of the technology rooms (TR) and main equipment room (MER) on the horizontal and vertical axis through the building need to be within the specifications of the initial cabling technologies. When an architect moves a technology room early in the design phase (in order to give the department chair a larger office, for example), the technology cost and functional implications are not considered, unless someone is at the table to explain the permissible parameters.

Can everybody see? Today, most technology-enabled teaching rooms are being designed as projection-centric or projection-capable, meaning that the main electronic visual aide to teaching is one or more front-projected images at or near the front of the classroom. To facilitate this use of projection technology, a sightline study is necessary to determine two things: First, d'es each student seat have a comfortable visual pathway to one or more of the projected images? Second, d'es the projector have a line-of-sight to the screen? Since construction plans for lighting frequently do not state the fixture type on the drawing, but refer to a separate appendix or table, it can be time-consuming to make sure that (for instance) no pendant lights are hanging in-between the projector and the screen.