Fordham University has upgraded 15 classrooms on the Lincoln Center and Rose Hill campuses with the latest interactive technology since the summer, pushing the total number of fully equipped facilities to 146.
Fordham’s information technology department upgraded five classrooms at the Lincoln Center campus and 10 classrooms at the Rose Hill campus with multimedia technology, and another five classrooms are scheduled for upgrading over the winter break. Plans call for 20 more classrooms to be upgraded in 2008.
Ten of the new classrooms are equipped with state-of-the-art interactive touch screens known by the trade name Smart Boards, which are 21st-century blackboards of sorts that can access the Internet and project images or text from a laptop. Faculty response to the high-tech whiteboards has been “overwhelmingly positive,” said Jay Savage, director of the Faculty Technology Center.
“The boards can be manipulated by hand,” he said “They reintroduce into the electronic classroom some of the physical interaction you get with a chalkboard . . . except unlike traditional chalkboards and whiteboards, they can save the work the class produces. It’s a cool and useful tool that lets instructors get back out there in front of the students.”
