A talk given at the Code4Lib Maryland, DC, Virginia Regional Meeting, Aug. 11-12 2015. #C4LMDC

1. Users, UX, & Technology
: Going hi-tech with your
classroom AV system
Bohyun Kim
Blog: http://bohyunkim.net/blog Twitter: @bohyunkim
Associate Director for Library Applications and Knowledge Systems,
Health Sciences and Human Services Library,
University of Maryland, Baltimore
Code4Lib Maryland, DC, Virginia - Regional Meeting, Aug. 11-12 2015.

2. Classrooms at HS/HSL

3. LL05

4. Equipped with:
• Student PCs
• 1 Projector Screen
• 1 Teacher PC
• The Teacher screen is projected to the Projector screen.
• Synchroneyes, which broadcasts a teacher station screen
image to student PCs and lock them down.
http://smarttech.com/us/Resources/Training/Archive+Produ
cts/SynchronEyes+7+software

5. Ideas for the New AV Setup
• Multiple screens
• Project not only the screen of a PC or a laptop but that of
other mobile devices.
• Broadcasting & recording classes
• Supporting hybrid classes with the audience in this room
and another site with full participation from both locations
• Camera and Mic
• Speakers

6. Renovation
• 5 Different screens in the room
• 2 Cameras front and back
• 1 Wireless mic & 2 Speakers
• Touchpad control panel
• A variety of dongles to hook up many different mobile
devices
• Height-adjustable instructor desk
• A/V rack in the closet
• Flexible system that users can assign any input (outputs
from the AV rack with 1 video card with 4 different outputs)
to multiple different display screens.

7. New LL05

8. Teacher Station

16. We (= IT) thought this was
a very flexible, powerful,
and awesome system!
until
we had instructors test it.

17. Issue 1.
The mouse wire and the
keyboard wire were too
short.
Solution: Replace with the
wireless keyboard/mouse.

20. Issue 2.
The monitor on the teacher
station would go to sleep
mode and wouldn’t wake
up.
Solution: Mark the power
touch button.

22. Issue 3.
The teacher station PC
would go to sleep and
won’t wake up with the
wireless keyboard/mouse.
Solution: Disable the sleep
/log-off mode.

23. Issue 4.
The arrangement of
screens didn’t make sense.
Solution: Make it similar to
the extended screen setup
of users.

25. Issue 5.
Too many screens & Tiny
Mouse Pointer in the Sea of
Screens
Solution: Powershell script
for a keyboard shortcut to
retrieve the mouse pointer.

27. http://superuser.com/questions/384099/is-there-a-win7-
shortcut-to-position-mouse-in-center-of-primary-screen

28. Original Touch Panel

29. Issue 6.
How Do I Turn On
and Turn Off the System?
Solution: Change ‘Power’
to ‘Shutdown’ on the
control panel.

34. Issue 7.
“Too complicated, can I go
back to the old school
way?”
Solution: ‘Computer only’
display forces all screens to
mirror the teacher screen.

35. • Option to make the new classroom function just like the old
one.
• High technology features unused.
• But better than the room avoided!
• Also works well with Synchroneyes that has difficult with
handling the extended display.
WIN + p

36. Issue 8.
Presets did not fit
the use cases.
Solution: More presets for
important use cases &
name them accordingly.

38. Issue 9.
Terms on the control panel
are not intuitive.
Solution: Rename them.
Put labels on the physical
devices.

47. Tech Instruction with User
Feedback

48. No Instruction is the worst!

49. Hard to Remember
• Preset 1
o Rear LCD, Projector, Lectern - PC output 4
o Front Left, Front Right - PC output 3
• Preset 2
o Rear LCD - PC output 1
o Projector - PC output 4
o Lectern - PC output 4
o Front Left- PC output 2
o Front Right - PC output 3

50. Could be better

51. Not so good

52. Much better!

53. Lessons Learned
• When you, your IT staff, your IT vendor all think the new
setup is pretty good, you may need a reality check with
non-IT folks.
• People do not want to deal with technology for its own
sake. Technology should be in the background to get non-
technology things done, teaching in this case.
• Confusing terms are confusing. Make them intuitive.
• Going back to the old simple setup is better than no one
using the new setup.
• Revise how-to instructions based upon the user feedback.
• Your IT staff and users all need training, more than once!

54. Customized
troubleshooting
Instruction for staff++

55. Thank you!
Questions?