Barco is helping schools and universities evolve from teacher-centric classrooms into interactive learning spaces where students participate more dynamically in both classrooms and via remote locations using their own devices (BYOD).
- Collaborative learning is sweeping the academic landscape, with increasing numbers of schools creating environments designed to provide a more active, engaging experience for everyone in the classroom.
Barco has developed its Collaborative Learning Platform to deliver the on-campus experience to remotely located students and teachers. The connectivity, information exchange, and interactivity options enable academic institutions to tailor their educational approach to generations of students who have grown up with mobile technology. Teachers also receive a new palette of tools to create new delivery models for their preferred teaching methods.
The Barco Collaborative Learning Platform supports both teachers and students by providing interactivity tools and simplifying information exchange. Students and teachers can bring any personal device (BYOD) and connect to the system via the campus wi-fi.
The modular setup of Barco's Collaborative Learning Platform makes it ideal for any educational setting, either a single classroom, a campus-wide platform, or a multi-site learning environment. The platform can be used to boost the level of collaboration in traditional classrooms, virtually "merge" local and remote classrooms into a single collaborative learning space, facilitate student workgroup pods, and drive completely virtual, worldwide classrooms. Students can interact with the teacher using their tablets or smartphones, the teacher can issue a poll or a quiz to get feedback, and remote students can pose a question by virtual hand-raising.
The Collaborative Learning Platform is a completely modular system, consisting of a number of building blocks. A software platform is the core of the system, featuring a flexible, easy-to-use browser interface that allows teachers to manage lectures and students to interact with the lesson. A touchscreen-enabled web interface gives teachers complete control over what is shown on the central screen. Display nodes containing ClickShare wireless collaboration and presentation technology connect all sources and allow teachers to select the required content and create the optimal layout.
"With our Collaborative Learning Platform, we created a system that meets the aspirations of students, teachers and facility managers," said Amir Saadiq, business development manager, higher education at Barco. "Students want the comfort, freedom, and flexibility that BYOD offers. Teachers want to make their lectures more interactive, and want to engage both classroom and remote audiences. And, facility managers like the total integration of the system into the campus networks and EduRoam as well as the ability for campus-wide integration with minimal equipment. This makes the system perfectly suited for both small campuses and large universities."
