According to Commercial Integrator’s own research, education is one of the largest markets for the pro-AV industry, with 81 percent of survey respondents last year saying they do business with educational institutions.
That includes K-12 and higher education and not just auditoriums, but classroom technology as well.
Understanding the science of how humans learn can go a long way toward developing and installing that technology an in turn, winning new education contracts.
Stephen Kosslyn, a former Dean of Social Science at Harvard University and president and CEO of Foundry College, wrote in the Harvard Business Review that technology can play an invaluable role in the way students learn.
Related: The Higher Ed Tech Scene is All About Embracing Active Learning Spaces
According to Kosslyn, the most effective learning method is called deep processing, which he defined as simply paying attention and deeply thinking something through before it is ingrained in your memory.
“This general property of our brains implies that if we want people to learn something, we should induce them to focus on it and consider its nature and implications,” he wrote.
Kosslyn suggests collecting data and using that data to form breakout groups where students can engage in active learning.
Active learning is where AV integrators can step in:
- AV integrators can bring an online class to life or allow absent students to catch up by viewing a recorded lecture by logging in from their device.
- AV technology allows students and faculty to be located anywhere and use any device
- Video and audio in the classroom play a huge role in active learning with technologies like interactive whiteboards projectors, video walls and touchscreen devices.
- New AV technologies allow students who bring their own device to tap into the system’s network
According to Minnesota-based Legrand AV, educators working with AV integrators should consider:
- How students and faculty will interact with technology
- How fast technology will change
- Flexibility to easily adapt to new technology
- Embracing interactive displays, projectors or whiteboards
- Safety
- Security
- Budget
- Aesthetics
- Everyone using the technology
