Case Study: Room 58, an AV-over-IP classroom success story

The building that’s home to the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media is a historic 66-plus-year-old building.¹ When Gary Kayye — founder of THE rAVe Agency — first started teaching new media technologies, branding and advertising there in 2008, most of the classrooms didn’t encourage a collaborative experience for teaching or learning. Plus, back then, collaboration in business and higher education was only emerging to be the AV mega-trend that it is today. But all of UNC-Chapel Hill’s students are millennials (ages 23-38 in 2019) and, now, Gen Zers (ages 7-22 in 2019)² — two generations that learn through collaboration and not necessarily by sitting behind a desk. They don’t just use technology; they live technology. Gary Kayye’s mission — in partnership with Gary Kirk, who oversees AV for the Hussman School of Journalism and Media — was to build another perfect classroom at UNC’s journalism school: the first-ever fully networked Extron NAV AV-over-IP classroom in North America. Room 58 is located on the ground floor of one of the most respected buildings on UNC’s campus, Carroll Hall.

The first challenge, one that many universities face, was that all four walls in Room 58 were brick. That didn’t make the design process any easier (as everything would need to be surface-mounted). The goal here was to make the installation look slick knowing much of the hardware would need to be mounted on the outside walls, directly on the surface. Challenge number two was to provide cutting-edge technology that could be hidden. Faculty wanted a clean-looking room that would not be intimidating but still provided all the desired features. Lastly, the goal was to integrate collaboration technology in a way that met the students and professor where they were — not the other way around. In higher education, students want to learn in ways that aren’t one-sided, while teachers want their students to contribute to projects with others inside and outside the classroom in real time. It’s not about sitting behind a desk anymore. It’s about finding ways to engage even the shyest participant to chime in. The anchor to all of this? AV technology, the heart of the collaboration classroom. The team at UNC wanted to build a classroom that was affordable, scalable and, yes, collaborative — but, at the same time, simple for instructors to get up and running.

The solution to Room 58 started before any specification work even began. The AV team at UNC knew that every teacher may not need every application or device — for instance, a document camera that would live in the ceiling near a movable podium in the classroom. By identifying the different needs and potential uses for the classroom, the team at UNC worked with manufacturers to see how User A would use the system versus User B. User A, for example, would want all the video capabilities they could get, whereas User B would be interested more in simple screen-sharing. User X, meanwhile, would want it all. Only after thorough research could the selection of top-notch AV solutions be finalized. The classroom was online just in time for day one of classes. The response was nothing but positive; Gary Kirk of the AV team received not one bit of negative feedback. The only ask — keep bringing on the added features! Thus came phase two of the project: a second Extron TouchLink Pro touch panel that would allow for mirrored control on either side of the room (as requested by the school’s faculty). Thanks to a well-planned launch, Room 58 became that classroom, the classroom that other instructors envied as they walked by, saying, “Man, I wish I could teach in this room!”