Duke University Unveils Cisco TelePresence Lecture Hall

Duke University and Cisco (News - Alert), a worldwide leader in networking, have introduced a Virtual Lecture Hall, first-of-its kind for Duke’s Fuqua School of Business students.

 

The Hall, custom-built using Cisco TelePresence technology, will provide students with access to professors, the world’s most influential leaders and guest lecturers from all across the globe. Additionally, it will help extend in-person classroom environment across campuses and also attract new students.

 

Duke University Dean Blair Sheppard unveiled the new lecture hall where a select number of Fuqua Business School students were also invited to participate in the interactive conversation with Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr (News - Alert).

 

Sheppard said, “We are now realizing the future classroom that can support education with the global foundation that students need today and in the future. This TelePresence lecture hall will facilitate an immersion into the classroom experience from points around the country and around the world for embedded and connected learning and collaboration.”

 

Through Cisco TelePresence both students and professors will receive lifelike communications experience combining high-definition video and high-quality audio.

 

The technology will further help to realistically convey the body language and human elements that are considered critical to the interactive nature of a classroom.

 

The presenters will also be helped by the new virtual lecture hall in extending their expertise beyond the physical campus to students across multiple campuses as though they were sitting in the same room. Moreover, it will also help empower richer and more productive collaboration for research purposes.

 

The custom-built lecture facility includes three 103-inch plasma displays, six 1080p cameras for both panoramic and life-size immersive video experiences, an instructor’s podium with two document cameras for sharing class materials, three remote student displays for the instructor to view remote classrooms from the podium and 66 custom push-to-talk microphones for interactive discussions.

 

Cisco TelePresence technology is used by many organizations today for lectures, training, brainstorming, remote demonstrations and webcasting and recording. Cisco has also installed more than 685 Cisco TelePresence rooms on its own internal network in 47 countries for greater productivity and effective collaboration.

 

John Chambers (News - Alert), chairman and CEO, Cisco said “Education is fundamentally a collaborative, interactive endeavor, critical to the success of future generations. With new collaboration tools, such as the virtual learning environments created by Cisco TelePresence, educational institutions like Duke are able to extend their academic expertise and share resources with students and teachers around the globe.”