Audiovisual solutions for hybrid distance education

At Intronics you will find various audiovisual solutions for distance education. The combination of physical education with distance education is also known as hybrid education. With our streaming and audiovisual solutions, we help schools, colleges and universities to combine education at home and at school.  Whether it is a short or long period of distance education: with our solutions, education can continue.

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More than ever, schools and students are looking for alternatives to traditional methods of conducting and attending classes. It is increasingly common for some of the students to attend classes live at home while a teacher and the rest of the class are present at school.  It’s important for the students at home to feel that they are in the classroom and that they are able to follow along as much as possible from a distance. For the teacher, it is important to teach all students from one central place, both at home and in the classroom.

Teachers often work with a laptop with the built-in camera or with a separate webcam. Modern audiovisual solutions offer better opportunities to properly convey the feel of a real lesson. Two examples of remote teaching are highlighted below: example 1 involves integration with Teams®, Zoom and Google Workspace and example 2 works seamlessly with Kaltura and Panopto™.

In this solution we use AV solutions from Atlona®. The Atlona® AV solutions are successfully applied worldwide in the education sector, among others.

Switchers from Atlona® offer seamless integration with Teams®, Zoom and Google Workspace. A switcher allows the teacher to independently switch between different sources such as a camera and laptop. The Atlona OME-MS42 matrix switcher with USBprovides connections for the teachers AV sources and its HDBaseT output connects to an Atlona OME-EX-RX receiver that supplies video to the projector. The classroom has two Atlona HDVS-CAM PTZ cameras, one dedicated to the teacher and the other directed at the classroom students. Teachers and room microphones are also included. USB integration is a key element of this solution. Conferencing applications such as Zoom or Microsoft® Teams® allow selection of the teachers microphone and camera for direct instruction, or the room microphone and camera for group discussions between in-class and online students. Recordings of the lesson are uploaded to a learning management system for later, on-demand use.

If the school works with Kaltura or Panopto™ we recommend combining a streaming and presentation solution. In this solution we use the streaming solutions from Epiphan. Epiphan is one of the top players in the field of live streaming and recording.

To give students the most realistic experience at home, a camera is placed in the classroom. This camera faces the teacher and the board. The ideal viewing angle is easily created by zooming in and out to the board. The camera is connected to a powerful and reliable video distribution device suitable for streaming and recording: Epiphan Pearl Nano. The Nano has an integration with Kaltura and Panopto™ and is easy to use. In addition, it is possible to design custom layouts. Besides the Epiphan Pearl Nano, the Epiphan Pearl series consists of: the Epiphan ESP1441 Pearl Mini and Epiphan Pearl 2. The entire Pearl series is suitable for streaming and recording and integrates seamlessly with Kaltura and Panopto™.

• Teacher is in contact with students at school and at home
• For the students at home, it still feels a bit like they are in their classroom. The camera is focused on the teacher and the board from the classroom
• The camera is easy to move and zooming in and out to the board is possible
• The lesson can be recorded with the Pearl Nano, students can watch it on demand.

Many schools initially choose to deploy the teacher's laptop in the classroom and teach through it. This is a quick and inexpensive solution, but it has significant disadvantages:

• The board is mirrored
• Students do not feel like they are in their classrooms
• Zooming in and out to the board is not possible
• On demand use is not possible
• The sound quality is not optimal
• The viewing angle is not ideal; special cameras have a wider viewing angle

In this case study, you can read why Thomas More University College chooses professional audio/video solutions.

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The Audio / Video team focuses on the professional audio / video market. Through years of experience in the professional AV world, Intronics thinks in terms of solutions, not in products. We know the market, give independent advice and provide several solutions for meeting rooms. These solutions are tested in their own fully equipped AV test lab.

The AV Lab is used for pre- and after-sales support such as:

• Testing of products
• Construction of proof of concepts
• Research & Development
• Beta testing of your solution
• Developing central knowledge