| Students, faculty, administration, and media center staff were interviewed about implementation and use of media-enriched university classrooms. The study reports on relevant aspects of classroom technological change, including ergonomics, transition, effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, equity, a need for a team approach, and a need for new and combined research approaches. Equipment in the classrooms included computers with CD-ROM drives, motorized retracting projection screens, desktop video cameras, liquid crystal computer display (LCD) panels, three-gun video projectors, tape recorder/players, closed-circuit television sets, videodisc players, video recorder/players, and microphones. Claims included improved student interest and attention, human interaction, empowerment, benchmarking, easy depiction of complex concepts, pride in equipment use, and information resource development. Some students claimed the classroom would compel instructors to change and be more creative. Concerns focused on student engagement, equity, empowerment, collaboration, research, need for faculty and student representation in classroom design, problems with classroom sight lines, seating, lighting, acoustics, and workstations. Issues included expressed problems related to administration of the classrooms, access to instruction, collaboration, and a need for a new approach to support services due to media material preparation time that sometimes exceeded 1 hour of preparation for each minute of a presentation. Other issues were classroom scheduling, a need to update and provide maintenance of equipment, a need for a tangible reward system for instructors, and accommodation of special needs for faculty and students. The complexity involved in combining interactive television and other media in a single classroom was a major issue. Recommendations include application of Bloom's taxonomy of learning objectives, learning organization characteristics and adoption of an intervention model that considers individual, interpersonal, group, and intergroup needs. Recommendations for the design of media-enriched classrooms include careful attention to seating as well as to natural and artificial lighting, sight lines, simultaneous visibility of long whiteboards and projection screens, ergonomics, and high-end/low-maintenance equipment. |
