May 1, 2018 — AVIXA™, the Audiovisual and Integrated Experience Association, is moving higher education to the head of the class at InfoComm 2018, North America’s largest conference and exposition for the professional AV industry, which takes place June 2-8, 2018, (exhibits June 6-8) at the Las Vegas Convention Center. AVIXA is the trade organization for the commercial audiovisual industry globally and producer of InfoComm trade shows around the world.
“Colleges and universities across the country are increasingly incorporating integrated audiovisual solutions across their campuses — inside and outside the classroom,” said AVIXA Chief Executive Officer David Labuskes, CTS®, CAE, RCDD. “In many ways, the higher education channel is leading the way for other markets to follow. Colleges and universities are showing how audiovisual experiences can create more compelling and engaging learning environments. We invite the higher-education community to attend InfoComm 2018 to learn how their peers are redefining the learning experience for students and administrators.”
InfoComm 2018, which is expected to attract more than 44,000 attendees from around the world, will host seven panel discussions and/or events focused on the innovative uses of integrated audiovisual solutions in higher education:
On June 5, InfoComm will feature an “AV Technology Tour” of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’s cutting-edge collaborative learning environments. The tour will focus on the university’s newest initiative, Hospitality Hall, a state-of-the-art facility that is purpose-built to support UNLV’s world-class hotel administration program. The hall features convertible, interactive classrooms and an instructional kitchen; a PGA Golf Management learning center; and an architectural design that celebrates and nurtures the connection between the college and the community. Hospitality Hall is a holistic union of academic program, physical space, and audiovisual technology.
Also on June 5, InfoComm will host a panel discussion with the New Jersey Institute of Technology and world-renowned design firm The Sextant Group entitled “Active Learning Space Design and Implementation.” Using the university’s SCALE-UP classroom design model as an example, the session will explore best practices for implementing technologies that affect pedagogy, explore user needs for active-learning environments, and strategies for ensuring stakeholder engagement in the design process.
On June 6, the focus will turn to California State University Channel Islands in a session entitled “Audiovisual Information Security in Higher Education,” which will explore how the university leverages tools from Microsoft and others to better secure its AV resources; educates users to be more aware of AV security in general; and secures its deployed digital signage systems.
Also on June 6 is the session “The Convergence of AV and IT at Brigham Young University,” a panel discussion in which university representatives will broadly discuss their open-source AV control system and how it came to be defined, developed and implemented. BYU will then discuss its control system in even more detail onJune 7 in a session titled “Brigham Young University’s Open Source AV Control System Technology Deep Dive.”
On June 7, Julian McCrea, CEO of Portal Experience, and Grace Lau, Director of VR for Global Nomads, will conduct a conversation about how technology is changing the very nature of the classroom in InfoComm’s free show floor presentation area, Center Stage. Their talk, “Incorporating VR into the Online Classroom,” will examine how mature uses of VR for education will expand access to learning, including the implications of holding classes in a virtual environment and how spatial learning affects students’ absorption of material.