Contact: Leah Barbour
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Technology upgrades in Mississippi State University classrooms will enhance faculty's ability to communicate with students, according to the university's chief information officer.
Equipping a formerly unequipped classroom, as well as upgrading classrooms in other buildings with 21st century technology, enables teachers to share material in a variety of new ways, said CIO Mike Rackley.
"To do the things our faculty wants to do today to teach our students requires us to stay as current as we can with the technology," he said. "Technology is so rapidly evolving that new, innovative things can be done."
Carpenter Hall 112 was brought online and equipped with a high-definition projector and computer, as well as digital-switching infrastructure, he said. Other buildings received upgrades from analog standard definition video to digital HD, including Simrall Electrical Engineering Building100, Hilbun Hall 102, Hand Chemical Laboratory 1144 and Giles Hall's Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium
"We upgraded four and equipped one new room because, if you look at the analog SD technology we installed 10 to 12 years ago, it's showing its age," he said. "Today, students watch high definition video; the experience is so much richer, more compelling.
"We're adding these high definition classrooms as resources allow to continue engaging students with better technology."
MSU's Instructional Technology Advisory Committee recommended which classrooms should receive the technology upgrades, Rackley said. Members include faculty and students from MSU's eight academic colleges, as well as representatives from Information Technology Services, the Center for Teaching and Learning, MSU Libraries, and the Center for Distance Education, among others.
Visit www.its.msstate.edu/services/classtech to learn more about MSU classrooms featuring the latest teaching technologies. For more about Information Technology Services, see www.its.msstate.edu.
MSU is online at www.msstate.edu.