Skip to main content
Lincoln Trail College has a new way to deliver classes to students. The new Synchronous Lecture Hall in Williams Hall provides students a way to take classes from instructors throughout District 529. Likewise, instructors will be able to use the room to teach classes for other students in the District.
The Synchronous Lecture Hall features cameras on opposite sides of the room to capture both students and the instructor. The cameras can track the instructor during a lecture and can also be zoomed in and focused on things like whiteboards and projection screens. There are two large screens on opposite sides of the room so instructors can see the different classrooms and students and for students to watch the lecture. An enhanced sound system is designed to easily pick up what the instructor is saying as well as students, allowing for collaboration.
“With LTC’s new Synchronous Lecture Hall, the College can bring even more course opportunities to students right here in Robinson,” says Dean of Instruction Brent Todd. “It will also provide opportunities for faculty to share their knowledge with other communities within our District.”
All four colleges within District 529 added a Synchronous Lecture Hall for the Spring Semester. The rooms were demonstrated during faculty workshops before the start of the semester.
IT Technicians Tristan Capraras and Shawn Mitchell demonstrated the hall for LTC instructors and staff. Mitchell said the new technology is designed to be easy to use and will provide a good experience for both students and instructors. “We found some of the cameras in other rooms tricky to use sometimes and they don’t have the same technology to be able to zoom in on sections of the room. We also found audio was a problem and students and instructors weren’t always able to communicate as well as they would have liked. The new hall is designed specifically to fix all of those issues.”
Todd says the Synchronous Lecture Hall will open a lot of doors for students. “Ultimately, it will allow LTC to offer its students additional degree, certificate, and course offerings.”
Students at Lincoln Trail College can take classes at the other three colleges in the district, but Todd says that wasn’t always a practical solution. In some cases, classes weren’t available online, meaning a student would have to drive to a different campus to take the class. Todd says there were also cases where a class wasn’t offered because of low enrollment, but now it will be easier to get students from all four colleges enrolled in that class. He says he could also see the Community Education program taking advantage of the halls to get more students.
“The image and sound quality of the cutting edge technology makes it easy to forget that the instructor may be miles away while students learn.”
