Pepperdine University announced today that it has upgraded more than 160 classrooms to enable hybrid learning.
In a statement, the university said it “sought technology to move its classes online that would be simple, consistent, and flexible to provide an engaging environment and accommodate any combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning.”
Working alongside a private sector audiovisual partner, the Southern California-based university deployed hybrid Internet Protocol-based solution cameras in 166 classrooms across its five campuses to support distance learning for its graduate and undergraduate community.
Early on, the university keyed in on professional-quality video technology as a major contributor to its success in teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The university said video technology “played a big part in the university’s solution to ensure its professors had the tools needed to teach online with their pedagogy,” despite not having students meet physically in the classroom.
“We didn’t want our faculty to feel like they had to re-learn the technology, depending on where they taught,” said Jared Mukai, Ph.D., manager of AV technologies and special projects at Pepperdine. “We needed a solution that would be turnkey and completely location agnostic, so no matter where you’re teaching, you could walk into the room and it was going to feel the same as every other space.”
In addition to needing a turnkey solution to make it simple for professors to use, Pepperdine also needed to get the solution up and running on a tight time schedule.
“There were a lot of complexities we needed to work through on a very tight timeline to ensure we’d be ready to support our students and teachers with online class instruction by mid-August,” Mukai said. “We evaluated various scenarios but with the uncertainty of the new academic year, we knew we needed a solution that could support all types of learning environments.”
In addition to the new cameras, the university also standardized its use of projectors through its campuses to “provide an invaluable tool to engage students visually and improve student participation and learning retention.”
