Presenting the future: here's what's new, what's next, and what will change your campus presentations forever. (Technology).

Following the lead set in the world of business, faculty and students are enriching academic presentations with electronic media, and rapid improvements in technology (and falling prices) are bringing an impressive range of audio and video capabilities into classrooms. And while faculty and students now have computer-driven presentation tools in many traditional classrooms, a more progressive IHE classroom is also making its appearance with multiple, interactive, easy-to-use devices that are coming to market in a steady stream and finding rapid adoption. While PowerPoint, the warhorse of presentation software, still sets the standard for the look and feel of media-assisted instruction (a typical classroom setup includes a projector with a desktop computer, or a hookup for one), plasma display units are showing up in growing numbers as prices come down. Document cameras, too, are commonly part of more progressive kits, and electronic whiteboards, now beginning to deliver on their promise to blend prepared presentation with live improvisation, are coming into the mix.

THE OLD STANDBYS GET BETTER

Projectors. Updated models are coming from most makers, including NEC, Sony, Canon, InFocus, Barco, and Epson, and all have gotten better, lighter, and cheaper in each of the past few years. In the $10,000 range, the NEC MT1065 (www.necvisual.systems.com) can be networked either wired or wirelessly and can be placed almost anywhere in a room and still project an aligned image due to its 3D Reform graphics. At half the weight and price ($4,299 and 6 to 12 pounds), the InFocus LP650 (www.infocus.com) is easy to carry and set up, yet still throws an image in excess of 2,000 ANSI lumens. At the low end of the price range, the $1,099 Epson PowerLite 51c (www.projectors.epson.com) weighs a mere 6.8 pounds and manages a respectable 1,200 lumens at SVGA resolution--800 x 600 pixels. Most IHEs prefer 1,024 x 768 projectors from these and other companies for their media-enhanced classrooms, but are finding demand also for the more portable models.

Document cameras have followed a similar evolution in quality and economy. Elmo (www.elmo.com), whose HD 80XG model can be found for as low as $879, still appears to be the market leader in basic document cameras. Samsung's Video Presenter line, ranging upward from $1,800, has become a strong runner-up in the category.

Multimedia. Classrooms with built-in multimedia presentation equipment generally include a dedicated computer for the instructor (sometimes dual: PC and Mac), projector, document camera, and VCR. Cart-mounted systems often have the same equipment, though perhaps with a laptop or just interface cables ready for the instructor's laptop. These configurations have become the norm on campus and are used every day for PowerPoint and Web-driven presentations. According to Bruce Harrison, senior systems analyst at the University of Tennessee-Martin, "Our goal is to bring multimedia technology to the classroom as a teaching tool; our faculty will have the ability to display their own multimedia creations for use in the classroom."

ONE STEP AHEAD

So what's next for media-savvy collegiate presenters?

Hi-res images of 3-D objects. Wolfvision's Ceiling Visualizer VZ-C10 (www.wolfvision.com) uses a combination of lenses and mirrors and the company's unique "Synchronized Lightfield" to improve document-camera capabilities to include high-resolution images of three-dimensional objects, even from the distance of a ceiling mount. The Lightfield has the special advantage of showing precisely the pickup area of the camera, for easy positioning of objects. The camera, which came on the market in late 2002, has proven particularly useful for capturing large-format flat objects such as blueprints and X-ray prints, and in wet laboratories and pathology labs where the projection equipment needs to be kept at a safe distance. Early implementers include the University of North Carolina and the University of Madrid. The VZ-C10 lists for $9,860.

PDA as presenter. Margi System's $199 Presenter-to-Go (www.margi.com) consists of software and an adapter card that turns just about any PDA into a presentation source. The Margi Mirror software compresses PowerPoint presentations, downloading them from the PC to the PDA. The adapter has a cable that plugs into a normal monitor or a projector's standard VGA input. When running the device, the presenter sees speaker's notes on the handheld while projecting the regular slide. It's even possible to run color slides from a monochrome PDA. Presenter-to-Go does not support animations, transitions, or sound, and is limited in its ability to show "build" slides. But, computers can be left behind when making a presentation. Presenter-to-Go is in use at Tufts New England Medical Center (MA) and the University of Texas Health Center, allowing the PDAs that have already become indispensable to doctors to double as presentation devices. Faculty who do not have access to laptops also report Presenter-to-Go is an inexpensive and convenient way to add electronic presentations to teaching.

Multimedia whiteboards. The Polyvision Impulse LTX (www.polyvision.com) multimedia whiteboard is a new product (it shipped in April). According to Megan Gajdos, MarCom manager for the vendor, the Impulse LTX was designed to meet customer's complaints that ordinary electronic whiteboards have been just too complex to use easily when leaching, so Polyvision took a "walk up and use" approach to redesigning the control interface. The whiteboard does not even need to be turned on by the user. It captures whiten notes, saving images at a single click of a button, and routing them to a printer, disk, or in-built storage for later retrieval from the board itself. The Impulse LTX can become a display device for a connected computer without any intermediate software. The computer display can be included in any part or the whiteboard surface and supports "relative mousing," a technology that allows the presenter to navigate both the drawn and projected displays. The largest unit, at 12' x 5', lists for $11,000. An early implementer is the Wallenberg Center of Stanford University (CA), a building constantly incorporating new instructional technologies into a select set of classrooms.

Ultimate control. Another new release for Q1 2003 is Sony's PJNet (www.sony.com), which provides central management and control of Sony networked projectors on campus. Support staff can use PJNet to change inputs, use remote diagnostics, and even turn off the projectors at the end of the day. When used in concert with Sony's SuperSmart projectors, PJNet allows files to be uploaded and accessed over the campus LAN. PJNet can monitor up to 128 projectors simultaneously and address each individually for control and troubleshooting. Pricing is based on the number of units addressed by the PJNet software. Boston University is an early adopter, aiming to network 40 to 50 existing projectors.

THE NEXT HORIZON

New, integrated media. A project group in Computer Science at the University of Washington has developed a presentation system called Presenter, in which they enable the blending of prepared slides with extemporaneous writing. Their observations of audiovisual usage in classrooms led them to set three key requirements for the next generation of presentation systems: integration of writing with existing slides, support for high-quality display of writing, and separation of control of the presentation from display of its contents. The system is driven from a tablet PC, to provide a relatively simple and uncluttered control interface. Instructors found the tablet was superior to the whiteboard for writing over slides, giving good pen control and a realistic-looking result. For their project, they chose the Acer Tablet PC (www.acer.com), an early entry.

Tablet PCs come in two basic formats: convertibles and slates. The convertible looks like a traditional notebook with a screen that swivels and can be folded to cover the keyboard. The slate looks like a laptop screen, but with the controls arranged around the border. The various tablet PCs run Microsoft's XP Tablet Edition (www.microsoft.com). In addition to Acer, ViewSonic (www.viewsonic.com) and Motion (www.motioncomputing.com) have helped to define the slate-style tablet PC. Costing a few hundred dollars more than laptop computers, they've drawn the interest of faculty who find a full computer too cumbersome to use in class and a PDA inadequate.

Specialized presentation environments--uniting documents, annotation, video, still images, and sound--are gaining favor in business, medicine, and the courtroom as well. TrialPro (www.ideaview.com) and TrialDirector (www.indatacorp.com) are examples of software-based systems for the presentation and review of legal evidence and testimony. Their primary function is to incorporate disparate electronic file types into a single slide show. Other significant features include the ability to highlight and annotate the displayed contents, all using off-the-shelf hardware. Both systems list for about $550. TrialPro is used in numerous law schools, including University of Maryland, College of William and Mary (VA), and the University of Florida. At William and Mary, TrialPro has been used in the Courtroom21 Project (www.courtroom21.net) to study the utility of technology to assist in jury deliberations.

SPEED OF LIGHT

No other area of technology used in instruction is evolving as rapidly as presentation systems. Familiar devices, like projectors and document cameras, are improving, getting lighter, and costing less. Better control interfaces and the advent of network-based control and troubleshooting are lowering some of the practical barriers to using and supporting these devices. The miniaturization of devices capable of driving presentations--the PDA and tablet devices--bring the added benefit of removing the traditional PC as a necessity for classroom presentations. This is truly the era of the presenter.

Tom Warger is a consultant for Edutech International (www.edutech-int.com).