AV - WSB - Hybrid Rooms (2510, 3335, 3180)

How to use the AV system in Grainger Hall Classrooms 2510, 3335, and 3180.

These instructions are pertinent for the following rooms in Grainger Hall:
2510, 3335, and 3180

The classrooms mentioned above are hybrid capable classrooms that utilize additional hardware that is not standard in the rest of our rooms. These rooms can still be used as a basic lecture space, but they also come with ceiling microphones that will cover the whole room, an auto tracking or PTZ camera, a side panel monitor, and a Huion tablet display for annotation. 

Below we will go through the AV control panel for these rooms, what it looks like and how it works. And we'll cover those additional pieces of hardware and describe how they can be used. The AV control panel sits on top of the podium and allows you to adjust the presentation source for the projection system, control the volume for the in room speaker system, control the volume of the microphone use for in room voice amplification, as well as control a few other things related to the rooms focus on hybrid learning. 

When the system is off, the touch panel will display a "Touch Here to Begin" screen. We do not use any pass-codes or keys. When you touch the "Touch Here to Begin" button the system will begin to turn on, and after the warm up period of 10 to 20 seconds, you will see the main page of the touch panel. 

Basic Main Page for rooms

Select Presentation Source: 

At this point, you have the capability to project information from a selection of devices. The Podium Computer, the Document Camera, a device connected through our Wireless Presentation hardware, or a device physically connected via the HDMI cable and adapters on the podium. 

Touch Panel Buttons
Podium Computer Tile Podium Computer allows for the projector to display content and sound through the computer set up within the room. Note: The Podium Computer must be used to take advantage of the rooms hybrid capabilities.
Document Camera Tile Document Camera allows a user to project non-digital content onto the projector screen.
Wireless Presentation Tile Wireless Presentation allows a user to connect their device to the in room projection and audio system wirelessly. 
HDMI Input Tile HDMI Input allows a user to connect their device to the in room projection and audio system via the HDMI cable present on the podium. A number of adapters are also present in 2520 for use with this HDMI cable, however the room may not have the adapter you need and so you are encouraged to bring your own. 
Picture Mute Tile Picture Mute this is not a presentation source, though the button is nestled in among them. This button will mute the projector while it is toggled. If you have some behind the scenes window moving, need to grab something from an email, etc that you don't want your students to see, simply tap Picture Mute, and the projection screen will go blank until you tap it again. 

Audio:

The buttons on the left and right sides of the touch panel control the two main types of audio played into the room. The left hand side controls the volume levels for the wireless lapel microphone present in the room, which also has its own mute button. The buttons on the right control the volume for any content being played from one of the presentation sources. This audio also has its own separate mute button. 

It is worth noting here that the wireless lapel microphone does also function as a microphone for recording and for web-conferencing calls. Muting it with the mute button here will not mute its feed to web-conferences or recordings. It will only mute the in room voice amplification (to mute in recordings and web-conferences, there is a different button, described below).

To adjust the audio, tap and hold the volume up or down button. After a second of holding you should see the audio level bar move in whatever your desired direction is. Tapping repeatedly does not adjust the volume in the same way, you need to tap and hold. 

Additional Controls:

Along the bottom of the AV touch panel are additional controls, mostly for the hybrid focused components of the room. 

Additional Touch Panel Buttons
Recording Control Tile Recording Control is present for administrative use only, and should only be used by select personnel from the EEPMBA office. Do not try to use this recording control button to record your class if you are not teaching for the Evening, Executive, or Professional MBA programs. You will not be able to access any recording made through this means, and the recording will be deleted. Recordings in this room outside of the Evening Executive, and Professional MBA programs should be done through Zoom. 
Camera Control Tile Camera Control when selected will open up an additional menu where you can control the PTZ camera at the back of the room. You can turn on or off the auto tracking functionality of the camera, you can selected one of its present locations, or you can manually adjust the pan, tilt, and zoom of the camera to your liking. An image of the menu for reference is included below in the Synchronous/Asynchronous section. 
Mute Outgoing Tile Mute Outgoing is a mute button specifically to be used in hybrid/recording scenarios. This mute button will mute all microphones that go to web-conferencing calls/recordings. The ceiling microphones, and wireless lapel microphone both feed into recordings/calls, and this will mute you to remote participants without taking away any voice amplification from the wireless lapel microphone.
Mute Incoming Tile Mute Incoming is a mute button specifically to be used in hybrid/recording scenarios as well. This button will mute only audio coming from a web-conferencing application. As such, you would be able to hear audio coming from the podium computer through the in room speaker system, but you would not be able to hear remote participants talking. 
Mute Ceiling Mics Tile Mute Ceiling Mics is a mute button to mute just the ceiling mics. In hitting this button, the lapel mic will still work for the purposes of recording, and speaking to remote participants, but the ceiling mics will not. This is useful to cutout the possibility of background chatter coming through the ceiling mics. 
Side Display On Button Side Display On or Side Display Off if it has been pressed is a status button for the side mounted display in the room. This display will normally always be showing the content of your left most monitor on the podium. However, sometimes if you're not doing a Zoom call with remote participants, or don't have any content you want to display there, it can be a bit of a nuisance. If you press this button while the Side Display is On, and it should always come on when the AV system is turned on, the Side Display will be turned off until you press the button again. 

Synchronous/Asynchronous Functionality

Camera and Microphones

As mentioned, the room has both a camera, and ceiling mounted microphones. These are the primary tools for making synchronous and asynchronous content in the room.

The ceiling mounted microphones cover the entirety of the classroom, and are lobed to prevent as much noise from the back windows/street outside as possible. We recommend when doing any recordings, or having any remote participants, warning the students in the room that the ceiling mics are very sensitive. Quiet conversations in the back corners of the room can be picked up by the mics, and find their way awkwardly into recordings, or into the ears of the remote participants. 
Because these ceiling microphones are so effective, you do not need to wear the lapel microphone to be heard by remote participants or in a recording. However, if you still want your voice to be amplified by the speaker system, the lapel is required. Additionally, as mentioned briefly above, you can mute the ceiling mics specifically, and then just use the lapel microphone to record/speak with remote participants, thus cutting out any idle background chatter or the possibility of it. 

The camera is mounted at the back of the room as well, and has auto tracking functionality. This functionality can be accessed through the Camera Control button on the touch panel. 

Camera Control Menu
Camera Control Menu

Here you can see the Camera Control menu that appears after pressing the Camera Control button. Pan, and tilt controls are on the left, zoom in and out just right of the middle, the auto tracking feature is toggled on the far right side. And the presets are all select-able along the bottom.

When you turn on Auto Tracking, all other options will be grayed out apart from "Auto Tracking Off". The camera will take a moment, and then try to grab hold of the person it sees most prominently at the front of the room. Once it has grabbed you, it should hold onto you regardless of where you walk in the room. Occasionally, an issue can occur if another individual walks by the front of the room or approaches the front of the room, where the camera will grab a hold of them instead. If that happens, it will either reset 1 minute after it loses sight of that person, or you can toggle auto tracking off, and then back on again while at the front of the room to get it to focus on you. This issue does not happen often. 

The presets are different zoom level shots of the front of the room, there is one for a full front of the room shot, one for the space around the podium, one zoomed in directly on the podium, etc. Test the presets as you like to find the one that suits you best. 

To leave the menu, you would tap "Close This Page".

Sharing Physical Content Digitally

The issue historically with trying to record content in a classroom is the physical aspect of a class. Sharing notes the instructor writes on the whiteboard, or showing off a physical material such as a paper via a doc cam. Sharing that content in a recording or with remote participants is possible in these rooms. There are just a few steps to get there. And the statement below is the most important thing to remember. 

The Camera application on the podium computer allows you to get a video feed of whatever the selected presentation source on the AV touch panel is

So let's say you wanted to share a physical piece of paper that you have with you with remote participants right away at the start of class. We'll go start to finish with the steps. 

  1. On the podium computer, sign in, and open up your web-conferencing application of choice where the remote participants will be. Most often this is Zoom. 
  2. In the web-conferencing app, share the content on your right-most monitor on the podium.
  3. Click the Windows icon, or the Windows Search bar, and search for "Camera". Then click it to open up the Camera app. 
  4. Now that it's open, move it onto the screen that is being shared out to remote participants/recorded. 
  5. Finally, select the, in this case, Document Camera Presentation Source on the AV Touch Panel. 

At this point, you should see a few things. First, the projection screen in the room will be displaying the document camera. Second, on the podium computer monitor where you put the camera app, you should still see the camera app, but inside its borders will be that same view of the document camera you're seeing on the projector. As a result, because you're sharing that view of the camera app with the remote participants, they are also seeing it in real time.

This process works the exact same way with the HDMI input option, as well as the Wireless Presentation Option. Both can be viewed through the camera app in the same way to allow remote participants to see it. 

How to share White-boarding digitally will be outlined below under the "Annotating and White-boarding" section. 

Annotating and White-boarding

The right most monitor on your podium is a Huion Kamvas. This is a monitor that comes with a stylus for the purpose of annotating. The stylus will live in a little holster on the podium just next to the Huion Kamvas. But, you can't just annotate over anything. If you want to use it, you'll need to open an application that supports a writing tablet monitor. The most used examples are PowerPoint, and the Microsoft Whiteboard Application. 

PowerPoint: To use the Huion Kamvas to annotate in PowerPoint, open up you're power point slides. Now, put them in presentation mode. Once there, you'll be able to take the stylus to the screen, and annotate over your own slides. When you leave the fullscreen of the PowerPoint, you'll be asked if you want to keep the annotations or not. 

Microsoft Whiteboard: In the bottom right hand corner of your screen, you'll see a small pen icon. Click it, and a menu will pop out from it with a Whiteboard option. Click that, and it will quickly download the Microsoft Whiteboard app for you.

Whiteboard Link in Bottom Right Corner

Once done, click it one last time, and you'll be prompted to sign in. Use your Campus NetID credentials to do so. Finally, once you've signed in you'll see a full open white-boarding space where you can freely write and draw using the stylus. To share this content with remote participants drag the white-boarding window over to the right most monitor, and then share that monitor out in whatever web-conferencing application you choose to use. This will allow the remote participants, and in room participants (provided the podium computer presentation source is selected), to see the white-boarding the same way in real time. This use case does not require the Camera app. 



Keywords:
AV, Microphone, Ceiling Microphone, Hybrid, Classroom 
Doc ID:
130196
Owned by:
James F. in Wisconsin School of Business
Created:
2023-08-08
Updated:
2024-09-16
Sites:
Wisconsin School of Business