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Classrooms, Technology and Support

Posted on February 22, 2007 1:49 AM

Sills 205, 207, 107, 109 and Hubbard 22 will be renovated and a number of other classrooms will have the technology upgraded this summer. The technology is improving but there are still classrooms that have older technology and continue to experience problems. Bowdoin approved an effort by IT to spend the next five years upgrading classroom technology. Along with this effort, projectors and laptops were added to the loaner pool so that faculty could check out this equipment for the semester. This enabled faculty to still use technology in classroom when it was not available.

To solve some of the faculty support issues surrounding the older technology in classrooms, Faculty indicated a ten minute response time for classroom emergencies would be acceptable. IT came up with the 5 minute response solution. This solution took the combined support of the Help Desk and AV to make it happen. When a faculty calls the help desk everything is focused on solving their classroom emergency. IT is just beginning its 3rd year of the classroom technology upgrade project.

The College recognizes that some classrooms don’t meet faculty or IT performance expectations, but IT is doing everything it can to provide you the support and systems you need to successfully teach your labs and classes. This is not the perfect solution by any means, but it is where Bowdoin is today. Most AV systems are still mechanical in nature. They are going to break, switches won’t work, cables will be taken, equipment will fail, and how we work together to resolve these problems in the heat of the moment says a lot about who we are.

Mitch Davis
CIO
Bowdoin College

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