The socially distant campus at a small school might end up having some things that turned out to be easier to do and some things that might have been more of a challenge. There may be fewer people to reach and fewer boxes to check, but you also don’t always get to be privy to the resources and staffing that larger schools have.
My school had the privilege of already being a Zoom customer so that rollout was fairly smooth. We were able to focus on training and how to streamline things.
As soon as people started getting on Zoom, then people wanted to do more with it which was great:
As soon as people started getting on Zoom, then people wanted to do more with it which was great: how do you break out into groups, how do you share a screen, how do you record, how do you use a second camera?
Some benefits of being a smaller campus are that we can work one-on-one with faculty to understand where the gaps are and address their concerns for making the experience worthwhile for the students. The aim was to build on the successes that happened in the spring, but also show everyone what tools they could use now that they would be teaching from a classroom with tech versus teaching fully online. Finding different options for people to use with the Zoom whiteboard is just one example of what people had to think through. Some have used a tablet, some an interactive projector, and yet others were able to capture just the standard whiteboard.
For better or for worse faculty can no longer choose not to use the tech that we have put in our classrooms. It becomes obvious what people like and dislike about what we have provided. Doc cams have become popular and people now know that signing into Google is a must!
Schools that maybe did not have a huge presence online now get a chance to make use of joining the virtual world.
Chapels and concerts are suddenly on Facebook and you have a larger audience than you expected. Anything that was still on paper now has to be translated into an online format.
The one piece of the puzzle that can sometimes help a small campus when quick decisions need to be made is that normally one office serves the whole school’s AV needs. We are central and consolidated so our office can offer services across campus and streamline things so that each classroom is configured the same way. We don’t have to compete with others about who is responsible for the space. This does present the hurdle of having to meet the needs of a lot of different programs that all have unique ways of teaching and considerations that have to be met.
A small school is also involved with other aspects of AV that an office on a larger campus may not have to worry about. Running events and resourcing equipment to people that want to do these events is part of what is needed. Fielding questions about what activities could be done outside also came into consideration because gathering outside was the best option in a lot of cases to limit viral spread. The pandemic really forced folks to start streaming events for the first time and groups had to decide what that meant for playing music and bringing in guest speakers. Some schools have group size restrictions so they have to balance the need to have people together while also giving people options to join in on activities from afar or from their dorm.
The ability to purchase equipment for our spaces that we never have had a chance to buy before was a huge blessing and I am sure this is the case for many schools that are private or not state-supported. This would allow teaching to change and adapt to the needs of the diverse learner. Even after COVID-19 is a thing of the past, we can hopefully put this equipment to good use to do lecture capture, for example. This should hopefully give students across the country better access to learning. I can only imagine how nice it would have been for me to look at a recording of a class period of calculus when I was a college student back in the 2000s!
Our charge as higher ed staff should be to capture the excitement and possibility that this time has provided us. How can we use these events to shape the classroom of tomorrow? I believe this question is very important to address no matter how large or small the institution. The world has now been exposed to UCC and other tech for hybrid learning and they will be counting on us to bring that to them from now on!
Steve gibbs jr
author
Stephen Gibbs, Jr. is a Senior Educational Technology Engineer at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. He enjoys spending time with his three young kids and interests outside of AV include disc golf and soccer.