It's new, it's improved, it's time. (Presentation Systems).

Once upon a time, the staff of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology at Murray State University (KY) found themselves with a windfall of grant money. They wanted to use it to do something realty special for the faculty, so they put together elaborate carts for each college, packed with the very latest in display gadgetry, and accompanied by a lovely spiral-bound notebook containing all the documentation, They waited for the thanks and the pats on the back they knew would be forthcoming.

They waited in vain, as it turned out. While the faculty of one college liked its cart, another stuffed it into a corner of the dean's conference room and left it there. Other carts were pirated, the components carried off and repurposed. The college support staffs didn't know how to service the equipment, and the faculties couldn't figure out how to use it. No one read the manual.

"It was not the best use of our money," TLT Director Linda Hiller says dryly.

Hurray State has wised up since then. The center now maintains a state-of-the-art presentation room where faculty can experiment and get comfortable with the technology, including videoconferencing equipment and electronic whiteboards--boards that display presentations off computers and the Internet, but can be written on like a regular whiteboard. The center now administers a technology grant program for faculty who want to explore new hardware and instructional software; it provides online training programs and maintains a faculty development studio loaded with computers and software for creating cutting-edge presentations. "We watch how faculty work with stuff in our lab," Miller says. "If they like something, they'll go to the dean and ask for it. There are Smartboards all over campus now."

Instructional technology expert Gerry Ewing, now at Stetson University (FL), remembers when a $30,000 projection system was introduced in a lecture hall at the University of Central Florida, where he was on staff in the mid-1990s. The students in one class had to take weekly quizzes, and their average scores jumped eight points after their instructor started using the projector. It was prone to get out of kilter if jiggled, so the students, realizing what a boon it was to their learning experience, plastered "Danger: High Voltage" signs on the beloved apparatus, to prevent it from being touched.

These days, projectors are jiggle-proof, often ceiling-mounted, and a lot less expensive than the one the UCF students felt so protective toward, There's no question that the latest in display toots can enhance teaching and learning, and the students are ready: The post-MTV generation is geared to PowerPoint presentations and Web surfing during class, Then too, new projection equipment has special contrast features allowing it to be used with full room tight, finally solving the age-old problem of students dozing off when the lights go down.

PRICES PLUMMET

Because of improved pricing, IHEs can afford a lot more display technology than they could just five years ago. Consultant Steve Shenkan of Shenkan and Associates (www.shenkan-associates.com) estimates that prices are eroding at the rate of about 20 percent a year. Even Dell Computer is now offering a lightweight projector to the education market for less than $2,500. "When Dell jumps in, you know a market is commoditized," Shenkan says. "It's a wonderful opportunity to get involved. And the equipment is so easy to use. I brought a unit home to check out, and my five-year-old had it up and running in 20 seconds."

Central consoles with multiple inputs that can display information from any device; systems that connect directly to the school network and the Internet; control software that can manage display equipment remotely and cut down on the need for staff--all of these things will be available at realistic prices during the next few buying cycles, say the industry pundits.

Nonetheless, Shenkan estimates that no more than 10 percent of colleges and universities are taking full advantage of what's available in display technology. Perhaps another 40 percent plan to install it, and 50 percent are dragging their feet.

COSTS: ALL OVER THE BOARD

Even with equipment costs dropping, the price of putting in cutting-edge classroom technology varies wildly, depending on the intended use of the room, whether the installation is part of a construction project or a more expensive retrofit, and how fancy the school wants to get. Purdue University (IN) spends about $10,000 on equipment per classroom to outfit its lecture halls, which doesn't include labor costs. Stetson's rooms cost $16,000 to $17,000. Murray State spends somewhere between $30,000 and $50,000 per room.

Columbia University Law School spent $3.5 million to outfit five rooms in a recent renovation, though Director of Instructional Services Brian Donnelly describes them as "some of the most advanced classrooms anywhere in the world." On elegant flat-screen plasma monitors, the rooms can enable display of anything the faculty can create, and they can record full video and audio--which explains why the rooms are heavily used for conferences. Everything is connected to the school network and thence to the Internet. A central control room runs all five rooms, plus the similarly equipped classrooms in a separate building that the law and business schools built together. In addition, a room's systems can be controlled either from the back of the classroom or from a podium up front.

As part of its $12-million Reynolds Center for Educational Excellence, completed in 2000, Mid-South Community College (AR) installed a state-of-the-art board room/classroom with two-way audio and video, electronic whiteboards, plasma display screens, a control console--"everything we wanted and then some"--for somewhere between $130,000 and $140,000. But Raul Fletes, vice president of Information Systems, had to shop around to keep the bottom line in the low six figures. "One vendor quoted a million dollars to install something very similar to what we ended up with," he says. "I said, 'Sorry, we have to go out to bid'. We never saw him again."

Fletes has watched prices drop steadily. Since completing the Reynolds Center, he installed a similar room--minus the two-way video--for a mere $80,000.

IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?

Still, even the most sophisticated equipment can sit abandoned like the presentation system carts at Murray State--unless instructors are beguiled by the technology and integrate it into their teaching.

Ease of use. The first step is to make the equipment so easy to use even a non-techie or a diehard lecturer can master it in a few minutes. "Compared with older systems, the controls we're now using are like going from a 747 to a microwave oven," says Gerry Ewing, director of Instructional Technology at Stetson University. So far, the school has installed in 15 rooms a system that uses a touch-screen from Crestron (www.crestron.com). "In the 1990s, we used to give hour-long workshops on how to use classroom equipment. Then they were cut to half an hour. Then we stopped doing them." Each button, he explains, takes care of all the adjustments necessary to get a particular piece of equipment to run. That's key, he says, because some users simply aren't prepared to handle the multiple controls typical of an older system. "There was one professor teaching an art class," Ewing recalls. "We got a call that the focus on his document camera was off. We told him to press the 'focus out' button. He said, 'Why would I do that? It's already out of focus!'"

"Faculty really dislike standing in front of a room and having students laugh at them," says Brian Donnelly of Columbia Law School "They have zero patience and tolerance. To take even three or four minutes out of class time is unacceptable." Columbia is also using Crestron control panels, and Donnelly estimates that it takes 15 to 20 minutes to train an instructor for 80 to 90 percent of the things he's likely to want to do with the system. Virtually all of the school's classrooms have the control panels, and usage has climbed steadily even though it's been said Law is one of the less multimedia-friendly disciplines.

Control panels should be uniform throughout the system, says Bert Collins, manager of the Multimedia Instructional Development Center at Purdue. He's outfitted 120 classrooms with LCD projectors and videocassette recorders, and linked everything via the school's computer network. From the user's viewpoint, each room is identical. An instructor accesses the equipment by logging on to the network, which also allows him to call up presentations he has stored there. The network gives him his familiar desktop preferences. "A lot of blood was shed to achieve that kind of uniformity," Collins says.

Facilitate digitization. Once the faculty is comfortable with the new equipment, say the experts, the next step is to get them to digitize their teaching materials so that they can be stored on the network or displayed from a laptop, PDA, or CD. That process won't necessarily be straightforward, depending on the discipline. Was Hines is a professor of Nuclear Engineering at University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and a great fan of electronic whiteboards. He says that handwritten slides can take years to digitize, "You have to be good at scanning or have good secretarial support," he says, yet even then, there can be problems. "You can give your secretary slides, but you might not get back what you gave. A secretary might not necessarily be adept at using equation editors." But this is where the electronic whiteboard can help, says Hines, if it's equipped with optical character recognition capabilities. The instructor can write on the board with a special marker and have the content saved to the computer. An equation that's written clearly enough can actually survive intact.

At Purdue, faculty are given grants of between $5,000 and $25,000 apiece to aid the development of new teaching materials and the conversion of old ones. The money buys the instructor time out of teaching and may even pay for student labor or special equipment.

Allow ample time for adoption. The final step in the move to sophisticated display technologies is: Don't rush implementation. At UT-Knoxville, a large batch of electronic whiteboards went in during the Christmas break. Hines did a series of one-hour demonstrations for the faculty, but less than half were ready to use them when school resumed. Usage has jumped this fall, though, now that faculty have had a summer to adapt.

All projector manufacturers have made their products backward-compatible with existing materials. "It's not realistic to say that you have to convert your materials before you can use the high-tech room," says Murray State's Linda Miller. "It's key to include low-end technology so that faculty can come in with their old tapes and slides."

RELATED ARTICLE: 10 ways to get the most from your display technology dollar.

1. Plan ahead. Prepare rooms for the latest display technology when you're building new space or doing renovations. It's always less expensive to at least wire up front, even if you can't afford the actual equipment right now.

2. Go for permanent installations. Mobile equipment that has to be scheduled and delivered is subject to breakage, theft, and not arriving where it's supposed to be.

3. Anticipate change. Like computer equipment, display technologies keep getting more powerful and less expensive. Assume that the systems of your dreams will drop in cost within the next few years, and start budgeting for those reduced expenditures now.

4. Get good help. Hire a designer/installer who has experience and solid references for the types of rooms you're outfitting. Check financial information on the company, to ensure it will be around for complete installation and for warranty service on the equipment afterwards.

5. Empower the faculty. Give them cash, secretarial support, and training to convert their teaching materials to take advantage of whatever display technologies you're installing.

6. Think user-friendly. Faculty members hate to have students watch them fiddle with buttons. Simple touch-screen controls can be mastered in a few minutes by the most technophobic instructors. Standardize the controls across all rooms.

7. Use the network. Connecting display systems to the school network will simplify putting materials on the Web, implementing distance-learning programs, and maintaining the equipment. And faculty can store their presentations online rather than fumbling with floppies, CDs, or their laptops.

8. Watch room layouts. Make sure monitors are placed so that all students can see them, and so that they're not washed out by ambient light. Orient document cameras so that the instructor can face the class while using them. Keep control consoles off to the side.

9. Emphasize flexibility. Be sure the equipment can accommodate a variety of teaching styles.

10. Don't forget low-tech. Chalkboards and traditional whiteboards should be available along with the fancy gadgetry. Electronic whiteboards with special markers can blend both worlds.

RELATED ARTICLE: Gaming the rooms.

You may think you can ease into new display technology a few rooms at a time, but those who've tried it say things can get mighty ugly.

Wes Hines, professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, has been an advocate of electronic whiteboards and has seen them go into many UT classrooms. When the boards began to be installed in liberal arts classrooms, he says, some of the faculty in those departments would claim that they needed the whiteboard-equipped rooms, when in fact, they just wanted to hang on to the classrooms they were used to. They had no intention of actually using the new boards. Instructors who coveted those rooms for the technology soon took to spying on the room hogs, and tattled to administrators when they saw instructors not using the technology.

At Stetson University, Director of Instructional Technology Gerry Ewing recalls how the faculty would 'game' the automated room scheduler. "They soon learned that if they checked off all the technology boxes, they would get the nice new classrooms," he says. "The people who really could have used the technology were stuck teaching in trailers."

Then, of course, once instructors get used to using the equipment, "they become addicted and don't want to be put in a room without it," says Bart Collins, manager of the Multimedia Instructional Development Center at Purdue University, who has converted 120 (of a planned 200) classrooms to networked display systems. "They expect that their PowerPoint presentations will work, and that they can show students their files and mess around on the Internet as part of the class." Bottom line, say the pros? Don't foster the addiction unless you're prepared to feed it.--EG

RELATED ARTICLE: How'd that thing get into my backpack?

So you've invested in those new, cute little projectors that are lightweight and connect to everything. Everyone loves them. But what if they love them so much that they take them home?

"I've heard horror stories of students climbing into very inaccessible places to ferret out installed projector equipment," says consultant Steve Shenkan, who tracks the higher education market for presentation equipment

But fortunately, while display equipment has gotten sleeker (and easier to stuff into a backpack), security measures have also become more sophisticated. The guts of most systems can now be rack-mounted behind cabinet doors, and can only be installed and uninstalled with special tools. Touchscreens can be cabled to a control console.

Such measures protect not only against theft, but also against unauthorized tampering by people who firmly believe they know what they're doing. Scott Apfelbacher of Dascom Systems Group (www.dascom-systems.com), who installs video and audio systems for corporations and universities, says some of the worst offenders are those taking or teaching advanced electronics classes. "They destroy systems all the time."

But the most potent weapon against theft is electronic: centralized control rooms that fire off an alert if a piece of equipment gets disconnected from the system. Systems can e-mail or page staffers if their components suddenly disappear. Purdue University employs such a system. "Even if a computer gets unplugged, we get a massage," says Bart Collins, manager of the school's Multimedia Instructional Development Center.

Such control rooms also allow schools to stretch their staffs further. "These days," says Gerry Ewing, director of Instructional Technology at Stetson University, "we get money for technology as part of the construction budget, but we don't get money for the staff to maintain it." So Ewing is trying out a Crestron system called RoomView, which not only sends alerts for disconnections, but also for any malfunction. Don't you hate it when those bulbs blow? The system also tracks details such as how much life is left in a projector's lamp.--EG

Elizabeth Gardner is a Chicago-area freelance writer who specializes in technology.