Potential Uses for the TLT Studio

The TLT Studio offers a dynamic, state-of-the-art teaching space where you can promote interaction and engaged learning. The room's high-tech tools and equipment have as many uses as you have ideas.

 

The TLT Studio

Flexible room furniture:

The room is equipped with 26 chairs and 14 tables—all rolling and stacking—allowing for a virtually unlimited number of customizable configurations. Try auditorium style (26 chairs with no tables), peer-review or conference style (two people per table), seminar style (one large table), or whatever your course needs on any given day. Tables have multiple ports for electricity supply and Internet access.

 

Touch-panel Control System

Touch-panel control system:

All of the room's equipment is run by a touch-panel control system—operated at the podium and remotely. At its heart is a state-of-the-art operating system, running a Crestron matrix, which manages all video, audio, lights, cameras and microphones.

 

Multi-image Projection

Multi-image projection:

The TLT Studio uses three short-throw rear-screen digital projectors with high-resolution optics that offer more than three times the resolution of a typical classroom projector. The three screens are state-of the-art, custom-fabricated, 5- by 6-foot acrylic screens—an astonishing 18-feet in total length with a sharpness of 786,432 pixels per panel.

Using the touch-panel control system, the studio can project one very wide image across the entire 18 feet of screens or a mix of up to three images from 16 sources. These sources include the podium computer, Tablet PC, document camera, DVD, VCR, auxiliary video (i.e., V-iPod), TV tuner, one of three in-room cameras, campus video feeds and Matrox feed (either desktop computer or any connected laptop). The touch-panel system is able to mix, match and compare any of these sources.

 

Multi-camera Capture

Multi-camera capture:

Three broadcast-quality, robotic, SDI (Serial Digital Interface, aka "digital video"), three-chip cameras feed into the Educational Technology Center production suite for live, high-end production recording. The cameras can be controlled from ETC production and from within the TLT Studio.

 

Tablet PCs and collaboration software:

Tablet PC

The room is equipped with 26 Hewlett Packard 2710 table PC laptop computers running DyKnow collaboration software. In consort, the PCs and software provide faculty and students with these benefits:

  • Adds personal touches to documents by handwritten comments using digital ink
  • Fluid and dynamic PowerPoint slide annotation
  • Fosters a free-flowing environment when used in small groups for discussions and brainstorming
  • Create interactive presentations that include student comments and observations that can be saved and distributed to the class
  • No need for a laser pointer to draw attention to a slide
  • Personalize the learning experience—instructors an give handwritten feedback to students on assignments, both during and after class
  • Students feel more engaged when their comments and ideas were written
  • Facilitate deaf/hard-of-hearing and hearing student communication in teams
  • Increased instructor productivity in delivering and gathering worksheets that require notation
  • Works with any subject area, but especially math and science fields

 

Telephone audio conferencing

The studio is equipped with an array of speakers and microphones—all controlled by the touch-panel control system—for conducting audio conferences.

Audience response devices/clickers:

iClickers

Clickers are wireless keypads that allow the instructor to quickly survey the class. The instructor asks the class a question—out loud, through a PowerPoint Presentation, on a Web page or with myCourses—and students answer with the keypad. Once everyone has responded the results of the class appear on screen in a bar graph. Clickers allow instructors to:

  • Actively engage students throughout the entire class period
  • Gauge the level of understanding of the material being presented
  • Shift discussion based on students' responses and increase communication
  • Track responses to an individual student for grading, attendance and immediate assessment
  • Promote collaboration with group exercises that require students to discuss and come to a consensus, or with quiz questions that create a healthy competition

 

Technology Support

The TLT Studio is operated and maintained by a support team drawn from Online Learning and the Educational Technology Center. Support staff are available to help with technology demonstrations and support. For more information, contact Damon Betlow at 475-5922 or debetc@rit.edu.