Our Global Digital Classrooms (GDCs) provide an educational experience without the barriers of distance.
As part of our ecosystem, GDCs in the Munday Library provide students, faculty and staff real-time, high-definition video conferencing capabilities, giving them the feeling that remote participants are in the same room. They can be used for regular class meetings, less formal meetings, or project groups and standalone events, like guest lectures, and enable asynchronous collaboration for classroom learning. The Global Digital Classrooms allow faculty, students, and others in locations around the world to come together virtually for a wide range of learning opportunities through the power of advanced video conferencing.
Room 143: The Brown Foundation, Inc., Global Digital Classroom
This room is arranged with classroom style seating consisting of three rows of tables with eight seats each for a total of 24 seats.
Room 141: Global Digital Classroom
This room is arranged with movable furniture that combines to form four tables with six seats each for a total of 24 seats.
Equipment in Each Room
- Five large TV screens, with three in the front and two in the back
- One large white board in the front
- One video camera each in the back of the room, with additional back and front cameras in 143 for tracking capability.
- Four ceiling-mounted microphones to capture audio anywhere in the room, two microphones at the instructor’s station (one for the computer and one for the PA system), and, optionally, one lapel microphone.
- Instructor’s lectern with touch-panel room control, interactive monitor and pen for computer display and annotation of presentation materials (room 143 only), document camera for displaying non-digital materials, and cables for laptop display and audio
Capabilities
High Definition Videoconferencing
Each room can be used for high definition videoconferencing. We can connect to remote participants via a variety of web clients – Zoom, Google Hangouts/Meet, Skype, etc. Videoconferencing can be point-to-point (2-way) or multipoint, depending on service. With Zoom or Google, we may also record the conference.
Audio-Video Recording and Archiving
We can also record any events taking place in the rooms using the built-in cameras and microphones. Videos are recorded on locally and then ultimately – usually automatically – transferred to our Panopto DMM cloud storage server (which offers a YouTube-like video portal just for St. Edward's) and can be kept private to a class or shared publicly on the open web.
Suggested Uses
- Linked intercampus courses that meet jointly for some or all of their meetings
- Interactive discussions between a local and a remote class
- Guest lectures and Q&A with a remote expert or traveling faculty member
- Pre-departure discussions with study abroad sites
- Meetings including remote participants
- Presentations from students studying abroad or in off-site internships
- Sharing local expertise with remote participants
