AVT Question: Please share your insights into emerging trends and how AV/IT technologies are reshaping the higher education classroom and beyond.
Thought Leader: Brandon White, Director of Product Development at Vanco International
When I think about how higher education classrooms have changed in recent years, the first word that comes to mind is agility. Not long ago, a classroom was just a static space: four walls, a whiteboard, and maybe a projector if you were lucky. Today, it’s a dynamic environment: flexible, inclusive, and shaped as much by how students learn as by what they’re learning.
What changed was the mindset. The pandemic was the big turning point. Suddenly, everyone had to use technology tools to help facilitate learning. Once that barrier was broken, there was no going back.
Imagine a lab table where four students plug in, press a button, and their work pops up on the shared screen with no fuss and no delay—just learning in real time." —Brandon White, Director of Product Development at Vanco International
An area that I’ve seen continue to evolve is how higher education spaces are utilizing more collaboration products to support BYOD. At this point, it’s assumed that students will bring their own laptops, tablets, or phones. The job of the AV system is to support that seamlessly and reliably.
Imagine a lab table where four students plug in, press a button, and their work pops up on the shared screen with no fuss and no delay—just learning in real time. This isn’t a hypothetical: We’ve seen solutions like KVM switches and wireless video switchers become very popular for this exact application. This kind of simple, intuitive tech encourages students to share ideas, challenge each other, and stay engaged.
Even as collaboration technology becomes part of the fabric of the modern classroom, however, it’s important to foreground simplicity and reliability. You can design the most sophisticated classroom in the world, but if the instructor or students have to call IT every time they want to share their screen, you’ve missed the mark. The tech should disappear into the background and let educators do what they do best: teach.
