Multi-Media Teaching Lab - Greene 160

January 24, 2003

The lab has an instructor station and 50 student stations. An Extron display switch sends the different image sources from the main computer, document camera, and slide projector or laptop computer to the instructor monitor and the LCD projector. The system also has a Hall Mirrors-1 hardware switch that lets you switch the monitors on all student stations to display whatever is on the instructor station. The Hall hardware switch requires no software. In addition, there is a network program that permits the instructor station to send computer screens to all student stations or selected student stations over the network.

Instructor Station: The instructor station includes a microscope camera that connects to the computer with a FireWire capture card. You may display video from the computer, document camera, and a laptop computer (or other input source), on the instructor's monitor and LCD projector using the Extron display switch located on the countertop above the keyboard. You may also display the images directly on the student stations using the Hall Mirrors-1 hardware switch along with a second Hall A/V switch. The monitor on the Instructor station is a “SmartBoard.” It has an electromagnetic pen and tools for writing on the screen or highlighting the computer image. The SmartBoard works only with the computer input—not with the document camera or VCR inputs.

The software on the Instructor Station includes the following programs that you may access from the Programs icon on the desktop.

MagnaFire: The camera and image capturing software. Currently this software (or the camera itself) has a bug, which we are investigating with the vendor.
Ulead PhotoImpact (image editing plus an image album system with a database).
Adobe PhotoShop Elements (image editing).
Microsoft Office.
SmartBoard software.
NetSupportSchool software (the software than can send images across the network).

Known Problems:

Projector: The projector sometimes does not come on the first time you press the button. If that happens to you, please wait until the light stops blinking, and try again. Telecom knows about this problem and is trying to resolve it.
SmartBoard: Users occasionally accidentally turn off the SmartBoard. When that happens, it may appear that the system is not working. Also, the SmartBoard on rare occasions has locked up. If that happens, and you are sure it is turned on, try rebooting the computer.
Microscope Camera: The power supply on the shelf under the microscope needs to be OFF when you boot the computer. Otherwise, the program may lock up when you first use it. This is a known bug in the camera software, and the vendor is aware of the problem.
NetSupportSchool Program: This system works fine for displaying static images across the network to student stations, but it does not work for showing live video, including the microscope live image. If you use NetSupportSchool, be sure to exit the program before you try to use the microscope or play videos. Otherwise, the computer will bog down trying to transmit the live video. The Hall hardware switch does work for display of live video.
Please contact Charles Branch at 4-5414 if you experience other problems that should be added to this list.

Instructions

A. Instructor Computer:

Move mouse or press Up/Down arrow key on keyboard. If the computer is on, then an image should appear on the screen in a few moments.
If screen does not come alive in a few moments, check to be sure the Extron display switch is set for Computer. If is still does not come on, open the door and press the computer power switch. (When ending your session, please just logoff. There is no need to reboot or shut down the computer).
Log in to the network using your normal login ID and password, with “CVM” selected in the third drop-down box.
If the network is down, you can still use the local computer by logging in as follows:
The station, including the hardware switch, will work normally except you will not have access to the network or mapped network drives.

B. Extron Display Switch. Press the button next to the indicated label for Computer, VCR, Document Camera, or Laptop. That will connect the indicated signal (except the VCR) to the instructor monitor and the LCD projector. NOTE: Temporarily we have a 2x2 slide projector connected to the Laptop input.

C. LCD Projector. You can turn the LCD projector on and off using the button labeled "Dislplay Power" on the Extron switch above. To start the projector, press the button momentarily, and wait long enough for the projector to come on. This may take several seconds, and as long as a minute. To turn projector off, press the switch for several seconds (until the green light starts blinking. The projector will have to cool down before you can turn it back on.

D. Microscope and Camera: The camera power supply (the white box on the shelf under the microscope) MUST be turned off when you when you start the computer. Otherwise it will probably crash when you run the camera software, and you will have to turn it off and reboot. After you login, then you can turn on the camera and start the MagnaFire program. Note: If you logoff during a session (not reboot), it appears that you do not have to turn off the camera.

After booting, turn on the camera power supply (on the shelf on the left).
Turn on the microscope lamp
Look in the folder called ProgramIcons, and double-click the MagnaFire icon.

E. Document Camera: The camera has a zoom in/out, a brightness control, and a switch between documents and objects. You may switch the light between front and back lighting.

G. Smart Board: NOTE: This works only on computer input, not the document camera, VCR, or laptop. The smart board has buttons for drawing lines over the image from the computer (including microscope). It also has some software that adds a few other features.

H. Hall Hardware Switches: This really consists of two switches. The first is a push-button switch with a red indicator light that selects whether student monitors will display either the instructor station or the local student station. The switching takes a few seconds to occur.
The second switch is a pushbutton box that controls whether the student stations will display the instructor computer, document camera, laptop, or VCR.

I. Slide Projector: A slide projector is available and is installed temporarily for evaluation. You may select it by pressing the Laptop button. The slide projector has brightness and color controls and a zoom.

J. NetSupportSchool Program: This program serves a similar purpose as the Hall Mirrors hardware switch, except it does the switching by sending information over the network to the student stations. That gives the system more flexibility, but has some disadvantages. In general, the software system is good for working with static images or programs, but not for live video.
Some advantages are:

You may display the instructor station's image in a window on the student stations, permitting the students to use other programs while they observe the instructor's station.
You may display any student's screen to the class on either the LCD projector or even other student's screens.
You may create different groups of student stations.

The disadvantage is:

The system creates so much network traffic that it is not practical to use for live video (including using the live video from the microscope camera). This effect increases with the number of student stations in use.