Baseline Classroom with Projector and Web Conferencing

Rooms: Founders Hall 317, 470

Classroom Features, Technology Instructions, and Teaching Tips

Typical Room View: For precise room capacity and photos showing the furniture and layout of your exact classroom, please log in to 25Live and click on the Locations tab. (You may need to create a 25Live account.)

Classroom Features
  • Touch panel controller
  • Instructor console with PC
  • Projector and screen
  • Laptop/tablet connection capability (HDMI)
  • Document camera
  • DVD capability
  • USB Camera and USB Microphone for WebEx
  • FAQs and Troubleshooting

Technology Instructions and Teaching Tips

Show All | Hide All

Touch panel controller

Instructions

  1. Touch the panel screen on the console to start the system. In most classrooms, the screen(s) will automatically lower.
  2. Tap to select the appropriate source button for viewing. Console PC is the default source.
  3. See panel screen for volume control and screen-blanking options.

Instructor console with PC

Instructions

  1. If the PC is not already on, check that the console screen is powered on, press the computer power button, or call support: 3-3456.
  2. Log in with MESA: Enter your Mason username and password if you need to access your MESA drive. Remember to log out when you are finished.
  3. To use Ink2Go to annotate electronic documents, to capture snapshots or video of your screen, or to work on live whiteboards and save that work, see additional information here.

Supporting Active and Engaged Learning

  1. Model thinking and problem solving: Use the touch screen like a doc cam and paper to solve problems, annotate texts, or draw a diagram in real time, while sharing your thought process: Turn the screen flat, open a whiteboard in Ink2Go, and use your stylus to write or draw. Or ask a student to come up and model the work for the class. You can also then save the document and post for your students to review later.
  2. Put students in the driver’s seat: When you have students lead class presentations or discussions, ask students to pre-load their slides from USB, OneDrive, or other cloud sites before class to save time. Remind any students who use Mac OS that some slides may display differently on this computer. Make sure they blank the screen to keep any login information private.
  3. For more teaching tips and examples, visit the Stearns Center’s Active Learning page.

Projector and screen

Instructions

  1. The projector may take 20-30 seconds to power down, and 20-30 seconds to power up on restart.
  2. Your screen(s) may automatically roll down when you turn the system on, or you may need to pull the screen(s) down using the cord.
  3. Once the system is on, an automatic screen can be manually controlled by the wall switch if needed.

Supporting Active and Engaged Learning

  1. Survey or quiz your students in real time to see if they’re getting it: Since most students carry a mobile device, you can use a free or low-cost tool (Kahoot, PollEverywhere, Quizlet, etc.) to project a question on the screen and collect students’ responses anonymously during class. For additional learning, try a three-step process: ask a question and gather initial answers; have students consult with a partner about their answer; ask the same question again. (The best part is not that more students answer correctly, but that many students have explained or understood why the right answer is right.)
  2. Collaborate with your students: Using OneDrive or Blackboard, you can share a link with multiple students so they can use their own devices to contribute to a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document that you display on screen. (This may work best if you edit in your browser; your students won’t need any special software or accounts.) Your students could help you identify resources about recent economic data, brainstorm solutions to a health services problem, compose a database of their favorite movies, or list questions for an upcoming guest speaker. Often collaborative editing allows quiet students to contribute in ways that spoken discussion might not.
  3. For more teaching tips and examples, visit the Stearns Center’s Active Learning page.

Laptop or tablet connection capability

Instructions

  1. Locate the HDMI cable on top of the instructor console. (It may be located in the cable cubby.)
  2. Place the HDMI cord into the HDMI port on your device or the adapter. (If you do not have an HDMI port, you will need an adapter. If you are using an adapter, plug the adapter into your device.)
  3. Press the “HDMI” button on the touch panel controller to display your device’s screen. (The touch panel interface will indicate the selected source.)
  4. Faculty may check out laptops and/or adapters for temporary use from Classroom Support Services in The Mix at Fenwick Library. For longer-term use, please consult your department.
  5. To troubleshoot issues related to sound and/or image display, see the FAQ page.

Supporting Active and Engaged Learning

  1. Reporting out from in-class activities: Invite individual students or teams to connect their device to the console to share the results of an in-class activity. After in-class work, not all participants or teams need to report out (this can get tedious), but asking a few to share increases accountability and helps spark discussion about the range of appropriate and innovative responses.
  2. Sharing student work and peer review: Invite individuals or teams to connect their device to share in-progress drafts of their research, designs, lab reports, or problem sets. Students who present informally and take questions gain confidence and may gain helpful feedback or insight; more importantly, others in the class see real-time problem-solving from their peers and are often reassured that not everyone gets it right the first time. Help students focus their comments on how the document/problem could be improved and what they themselves can learn from it (rather than commenting on the abilities of the student presenting).
  3. For more teaching tips and examples, visit the Stearns Center’s Active Learning page.

Document camera

Instructions

  1. Press the “DOC CAM” button on the touch panel controller to select the document camera as the source.
  2. Place the item on the white square or clear surface–document should be placed face-up.
  3. For capturing photos and recording videos of your item, insert a USB device into the USB port on the document camera. Press the capture/delete button on the document camera’s control panel to capture a picture of the displayed image.
  4. Note: Only select document cameras support this functionality. For more tips and instructions, visit the Stearns Center’s Document Camera page.

Supporting Active and Engaged Learning

  1. Share your students’ finds: Remember that the doc cam can project a view from a student’s phone or tablet (though with varying image quality) and three-dimensional items as well as papers; your students’ backpacks and devices may have examples they can quickly share with the class using the doc cam. Using student examples can help strengthen connections between abstract concepts and their lived experience.
  2. Modified “gallery walk”: In a classroom with extended whiteboards, a team member can be selected to guide other students through the solution the team posted on the board as they move around the room. Here, using the doc cam, one or two students can bring a written record up to explain to the whole class; if the instructor selects these students at random, then all team members are always accountable for being ready to explain their team’s progress. Explaining and watching others explain the steps that led to a solution is a crucial element in retaining and transferring new knowledge.
  3. For more teaching tips and examples, visit the Stearns Center’s Active Learning page.

DVD capability

Instructions

  1. Press the ‘PC’ button on the touch panel controller to select the computer as the source.
  2. Insert the DVD disc into the computer DVD drive on the front of the computer.

Supporting Active and Engaged Learning

  1. Prepare for critical viewing: Students may need encouragement and practice to be critical viewers of video presentations. Consider doing a “trial run”: Ask an open-ended question that requires careful viewing and listening, play just a few minutes of your video, and then pause to check how many students noticed and connected the important details before you go to the rest of your video. (For one example of how “selective attention” works, see the basketball video here.) You may also consider using a viewing guide that includes questions to prime students to hone in on critical aspects of the material and scaffolds the learning process.
  2. Use predictions to strengthen attention and analysis: Before you start the video, it can be helpful not just to share some discussion questions with your students, but to ask them what they already think the answers might be. This pre-viewing discussion will help reveal their prior knowledge and engage their interest so that new ideas will be more likely to “stick” to or, if needed, replace earlier ideas.
  3. For more teaching tips and examples, visit the Stearns Center’s Active Learning page.

USB Camera and USB Microphone for WebEx

Instructions

  1. Open WebEx in browser at https://gmu.webex.com and join or host a meeting. Login with Mason credentials when prompted.
  2. Select the camera icon on the right side of the window to enable/disable your live video.
  3. To adjust the camera, open camera settings by clicking the gear icon on the right of the window and select “Advanced Options” to access pan/tilt/zoom options.
  4. Select “End Meeting” and close application to power down camera.
  5. Note: For information on hosting or joining WebEx meetings, please visit WebEx Resource page.

Supporting Active and Engaged Learning

  1. Engage with a guest speaker: On WebEx, your presenter is not just a talking head. Of course, he or she can join your class from anywhere: an office or field site, using a desktop or mobile device. But also, students can post questions and additional responses while he/she is talking, and you can use those both to help foster live discussion and to help students reflect on the presentation (even re-watching parts of the recording if necessary) after your presenter logs off.
  2. Include all students: Students in your classroom who have accessibility needs or who are reporting from a field site can join a class meeting; students from the class of a colleague down the road or around the world can join for a day or work collaboratively for several weeks on a project; students from a local middle school could share ideas online and then give mini-presentations to receive feedback from your class.
  3. For more teaching tips and examples, visit the Stearns Center’s Active Learning page.