Smart classrooms integrate intelligent high-tech devices, enabling smart management of classrooms, teaching activities, and educational records, while providing educational big data support for teaching evaluation and diagnostics. As an important part of smart campuses, the construction of smart classrooms has received significant attention from various schools. In April 2023, a research team participated in the China Higher Education Expo held in Chongqing, conducting extensive research over three days on products related to smart classrooms. The study found that the development of smart classrooms exhibits the following ten major characteristics.
1. Increasing Diversity of Smart Classroom Types
Currently, the main types of smart classrooms include conventional (standard), recording, group (seminar), presentation, network, practical, and subject-specific (professional) classrooms. Conventional smart classrooms feature traditional desk layouts with basic configurations and functions. Group-type desks are arranged in small groups, effectively supporting group discussions and collaborative learning. Recording-type classrooms adopt broadcast-quality high-definition recording solutions suitable for premium course recordings. Presentation-type classrooms are equipped with multiple large displays and multi-screen control systems, suitable for large classrooms or auditoriums. Network-type classrooms are based on computer network labs, offering rich functionalities for online teaching, autonomous learning, and online examinations. Practical-type classrooms are equipped with experimental tables, experimental arms, and other facilities for hands-on teaching activities. Subject-specific classrooms add necessary hardware and software equipment, providing essential functions for subjects like foreign languages, calligraphy, and ideological education.
2. Smart Screens Evolving Towards Greater Vision, Clarity, and Multifunctionality
Smart screens (integrated touch devices) come in various sizes, including 65, 75, 86, 100, and 110 inches, all capable of whiteboard writing and presentation playback, achieving high clarity, high refresh rates, high brightness, high contrast, wide viewing angles, and broad color displays, incorporating eye protection technologies such as anti-glare and blue light LED. Equipped with omnidirectional array microphones and wide-angle cameras, video conferencing performance has significantly improved. They offer numerous teaching functions, including smart board writing, annotations, screenshots, recording, screen mirroring, half-screen display, headcount, timers, buzzers, random name calling, reward rankings, and smart gestures. Some smart screens feature user-friendly functions such as mobile hard drive storage boxes, aluminum alloy flip covers, and dual-system data sharing.
3. Intelligent Blackboards Advancing Towards Digital Interconnectivity, Convenience, and Environmental Health
Intelligent blackboards include capacitive interactive whiteboards, infrared interactive blackboards, and solar-powered blackboards. The capacitive interactive whiteboard has a main screen that is capacitive touch integrated, with side screens functioning as capacitive writing boards that support water pen writing. The infrared interactive blackboard features a main screen as an infrared touch device, with side screens as infrared writing boards that support chalk writing. The electronic whiteboards on both sides interact with the teaching integrated machine, allowing board writing content to be synchronized with the integrated machine software for display, supporting simultaneous left-right split-screen presentations. Board writing and integrated machine presentation can occur simultaneously without switching, and board writing data can be uploaded to servers, local storage, or the cloud with one click. The solar-powered blackboard employs the world’s leading PDLC liquid crystal pressure-sensitive writing method, presenting soft green writing strokes without the need for chalk, ink, or other conventional materials, achieving truly dust-free and consumable-free healthy writing.
4. Increasing Integration of Equipment
The integration of equipment helps reduce connectors and wiring, simplifies installation and debugging, and increases system stability; thus, major brands are moving towards integration. For example, the Honghe smart electronic pen combines writing, erasing, page turning, and remote control functions, allowing teachers to operate PPT and whiteboard software conveniently and efficiently. The Aidi Smart Integration Terminal includes teaching computers, centralized control, IoT gateways, video decoding, live broadcasting and recording, remote intercom, wireless microphone reception, amplification, campus broadcasting, and HDBaseT output functionalities. The Aidi multi-in-one sensor can simultaneously detect environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, CO2, PM2.5, PM10, formaldehyde, TVOC, noise, and light. The NewBaatur future server integrates power supply, switches, POE power supply, servers, virtual disk management, system recovery, teacher’s machine, audio and video processing, and various functional modules.
5. Increasing Automation of Systems
One of the most direct benefits of information technology is automation, including automatic saving, automatic statistics, and automatic execution. For instance, the Honghe interactive display device automatically opens files when a USB drive is inserted; when a teacher approaches the Aidi smart integration information terminal, it automatically lights up; in the Foreign Language Teaching Online UNIPUS smart classroom, when a teacher arrives in the classroom, mobile and computer devices automatically connect to the classroom, instantly synchronizing student information and teaching progress; in the NewBaatur cloud smart network language training room, it can automatically detect headphone faults and provide terminal fault self-check prompts with one click; the Hisense smart podium supports IC card and QR code recognition login and automatically powers on, also automatically turning on devices based on the cloud schedule; the Haijie smart podium can memorize height after user card authorization, automatically adjusting to the memorized desktop height for next use.
6. Improving Microphone and Amplification Effects
The quality of microphones and amplification has always been a concern for teachers, and manufacturers are continuously striving to improve this. Current audio systems utilize high-quality equipment, professional intelligent algorithms, blind beamforming, and audio-video multimodal cluster processing technologies. They can achieve intelligent noise reduction, echo cancellation, automatic gain control, and reverb removal, ensuring voice transmission without delay, distortion, or interference, with clear and natural sound quality; they can also intelligently track voices, accurately recognize and focus on the speaker, enhancing voice clarity and reducing interference for distant sound pickup. Current digital infrared microphones offer broadcast-level sound quality, frequency stability, and immunity to electromagnetic interference and radio frequency hazards, leading to widespread application. The Taidian amplification system achieves intelligent switching among digital infrared wireless microphones, wired gooseneck microphones, and suspended microphones, meeting the teaching needs for clear language and high voice gain without feedback issues.
7. Intelligent and Cloud-Based Recording Development
The Hanboer embedded all-in-one recording device adopts intelligent positioning and tracking technology, responsible for capturing teachers, students, and board writing, achieving cinematic-style courseware recording through intelligent switching of multiple screen images. The OnePlus smart classroom can initiate fully automatic recording with one click, requiring no devices for teachers and students, enabling live streaming, on-demand viewing, and automatic segmentation of knowledge points. The Modern Zhongqing smart classroom can set recording and live streaming based on the class schedule, automatically publishing and forming course systems, which can be retrieved and viewed through multi-dimensional searches by subject, stage, sorting, etc. The Hanboer cloud recording classroom only requires a network camera, with all recording, live streaming, on-demand, control, and resource management functions implemented on the cloud platform, featuring lightweight clients, simplified local operations, and straightforward architecture and maintenance. Cloud recording also enables online editing, interactive commenting, knowledge point indexing, local backup, and server dual-machine hot backup functionalities.
8. More Intelligent Environment and Device Management
IoT management is a significant feature of smart classrooms, enabling remote visual device management from PCs and mobile devices, including big data management, resource access, statistical analysis, log management, scheduled management, remote switching, and monitoring. It allows real-time monitoring of classroom temperature, humidity, air quality, and one-click control of lighting, air conditioning, curtains, and other devices. Modern Zhongqing can initiate specific teaching scenarios such as lectures, discussions, and film viewing with one click, coordinating all related devices and simplifying teacher operations. The Hanboer teaching and management platform controls multimedia devices, attendance, cloud recording, and other systems based on the class schedule, achieving remote centralized control, status monitoring, remote assistance, and remote operation and maintenance management functionalities.
9. Increasing Emphasis on the Development of Seminar-Type Smart Classrooms
The seminar-type smart classroom is a typical representative of smart classrooms, with increasingly flexible spatial layouts, typically equipped with multiple group large screens, group screen controllers, and group interaction software, supporting students’ own tablets, smartphones, and computers as smart terminals. Through deep interaction in groups, it meets the needs of TBL (Team-Based Learning), PBL (Project-Based Learning), flipped teaching, and cultivates students’ teamwork and inquiry skills. The Ruiqu seminar-type smart classroom can achieve intelligent recording of groups, automatically capturing close-ups of group members when a group demonstrates, while recording a combination of group screen and close-up shots. In the Hisense smart classroom, groups can apply for result presentations, and all group members can freely express their views, which the teacher can easily retrieve; the teacher can simultaneously access eight group screens, making seminar proposals clear at a glance.
10. Focusing on the Construction of Specialized Teaching Platforms and Resources
Currently, most smart classrooms are equipped with specialized teaching platforms that support smart teaching, smart evaluation, and smart data. In terms of smart teaching: supporting multi-terminal teaching data interoperability, meeting ubiquitous learning needs; enabling preparation, attendance, quiz answering, on-demand viewing, screen sharing, random selection, bullet screen interaction, discussion, assignments, annotations, screenshots, notifications, statistics, and other teaching activities. In terms of smart evaluation: utilizing recording, assignments, exams, and other process data to achieve remote supervisory evaluations, student process evaluations, and intelligent corrections of writing and speaking. In terms of smart data: collecting, processing, analyzing, and applying teaching big data to generate multi-dimensional data reports on interactive summaries, learning situation analysis, course quality, etc., achieving digital transformation of related school operations; the Foreign Language Teaching Online UNIPUS subject-specific smart classroom integrates a vast array of interactive and editable digital textbooks and courseware, supporting direct application by teachers.
Reprinted from Teacher Training Alliance
