SMART Classroom System Information

For classroom instruction using multimedia and computer technologies, ITS developed "smart" classrooms.

A smart classroom system is equipped with:

  • a Macintosh and/or PC computer
  • a video/data projector for large screen projection
  • a VHS/DVD player
  • a document presenter for transparency, slide, printed, and three-dimensional object projection
  • connections for tying laptop computers, iPods or other external devices into the room's high-resolution presentation system
  • Lecture Halls are equipped with a public address system and wireless microphone unit.
  • Selected rooms are equipped with a 35mm slide converter as well as other specialized equipment.

The smart classroom was introduced to SDSU by ITS in the large lecture halls in the mid-1990s, a response to increased faculty demand for instructional technologies. As computers and multimedia devices were becoming more commonplace in educational settings, and as faculty began to realize the enormous possibilities of teaching with these tools, ITS started developing the first of many generations of the smart classroom console. By 1997, faculty began requesting smart classroom consoles in some of the smaller classrooms across campus.

Today, roughly 80% of the general assignment (centrally-scheduled) learning spaces have this capability.