Enhancement of Lecture Theatres

Horizontal Rule [Sept 97]

Peter Mok

Despite the evolving of many collaborative teaching approaches and availability of self-learning materials, the traditional lecture-based approach remains the major and most important pedagogical method. However, our teaching venues had not been entirely satisfactory despite the continued upgrade and enhancement efforts made by various supporting departments. When teaching excellence becomes one of our University goals, provision of basic audio-visual and computing facilities in the teaching rooms will no longer be sufficient. It is more important that teaching facilities be arranged in a way to ensure user friendliness and robustness so that lecturers can apply their undisturbed effort to their classes. The facilities should also be able to support the latest multimedia technologies to enable vivid presentation and demonstration. While the lecture theatres and classrooms in CityU had remained the similar settings for almost nine years since the present campus was built, it is commonly considered that it's time for these teaching rooms to have a major review and revamp.

A proposal was made last December for an overall enhancement of the teaching facilities and environment in the Lecture Theatres as well as in the classrooms on the 4th floor. The proposal soon received approval from the senior management and budget for the development of Phase I was granted to renovate the 18 lecture theaters first. A task force convened by the Director of Computing Services was then formed to oversee the project and its membership comprises representatives from the CAS, CSC, EMO and PDQS, as well as academics from Faculties and College to represent user views.

Without delay, the Task Force completed all the acquisitions and contracted out the construction works within Semester B of 96/97, though some difficulties were encountered in meeting the budget. On-site works started at the beginning of the summer term and will take the whole summer to complete. As user friendliness is of primary concern for the project, suggestions and comments from the end users have been sought continuously during the planning and the construction phases.

The enhancement project includes four major aspects:

  1. The Environment Improvement

    There will be great improvements to the lighting to suit different lecturing requirements. Various light settings will be pre-set and controlled through simple buttons. This enables a quick lighting set up for a straight lecture, video/computer projection, or slide presentation.

    Besides, air-conditioning will also be improved to ensure proper air flow in order to maintain a constant temperature within every part of the lecture theatre.

    Remote microphones and mice for computer presentation will be provided for these lecture theatres so that the instructors can freely walk around in class to make the lecture more dynamic and flexible.

    A new custom-built multi-console is carefully designed to house all the necessary audio/visual and computer equipment for lecture delivery. Included as standard are a local VCR, a local laser disc player, a local cassette recorder, and a networked multimedia PC. This multi-console also provides an external network port and a VGA input for notebook computers and an external audio/video input for audio/visual equipment such as a video camera and extra microphones. A working area of suitable height and ample desktop space is provided where instructors can place teaching materials together with notebook computers.

    Most importantly, the multi-console will become a command and control centre for the lighting, air-conditioning, and all the display and broadcast equipment in the theatre. Audio/visual and computer equipment fitted for any presentation style will be integrated into the multi-console from which the instructors can easily select the desired presentation environment and control the different advanced pieces of multimedia equipment ranging from the VCR, computer projections, slide projectors to video projectors. In other words, everything will be under control at the touch of a button on the touch panel.

  2. Audio/visual Equipment Enhancement

    New projectors employing the latest technology will be installed in all lecture theatres. Besides giving brighter and sharper images, they are capable of supporting the projection of the highest resolution from workstations like SUN, SGI etc. High-resolution visualizer will also be available in every lecture theatre as a standard provision, which enables the projection of printed hardcopy and real objects in addition to the conventional transparencies. Nonetheless, traditional teaching tools like large sliding whyteboards, overhead projectors and slide projectors will still be available as an alternative or as back-ups.

    As mentioned above, video equipment will be available locally. That means users will then have a choice of selecting the local video display or using the central video distribution system as before. Thanks to the Video-on-demand (VOD) technology, a third choice will soon be provided for users to interactively select and play videos or computer video clips through the implementation of the leading edge multimedia technology. A video server capable of feeding multiple MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 video streams on request will be acquired to provide the VOD service. Full motion video based on MPEG 1 video gives VCD quality of display while MPEG 2 video can produce a quality as high as DVD. With this system, users can prepare multiple video clips and store them on the server beforehand. During lecture, the instructors can choose whatever video clips interactively at digital quality. All these greatly increase the flexibility in arranging video shows.

  3. Computer and Network Equipment Enhancement

    These lecture theatres will create new opportunities in teaching and learning by integrating computer, multimedia, and network technologies.

    To enable the VOD services, high speed network will be provided through the two network ports each having a 10/100 Mbps bandwidth supported by the ATM backbone. Besides, the high network bandwidth can allow fast software and information (video/voice/data) retrieval. This provision also enables a live broadcast of events staged in one lecture theatre to the others with the addition of appropriate video encoding and decoding equipment.

    Application software will be provided through a Pentium Pro server. Users have a choice of using the local software if they just want straight presentation through Microsoft PowerPoint. Or, they can use the software in this central server, the student LAN server or their departmental server for computer demonstrations.

    The multimedia PCs in the lecture theatres are equipped with sound cards and CD drives so that lecture materials or presentation information in the form of a CD-ROM can be used in the lecture theatres.

  4. Supporting and Training Aspects

    While the lecture theatres will be supported by the four concerned departments, namely the audio/video services by the CAS, the computing/network services by the CSC, the lighting/power/air-conditioning services by the EMO, and instructional training by the PDQS, a single point of contact for receiving all service requests will be established. With the close coordination and working spirit of the four departments, we believe that the support services to the lecture theatres would be much streamlined and bring greater convenience to our users.

    In short, the overall modernization design integrates all components (lighting, video/audio, network, projection units, etc.) into the lecture theatre environment well. Given the proper opportunity - equipment, training and support - lecturers will be able to incorporate new technologies into their mode of instruction which will benefit both students and instructors.


[Issue No. 12]


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