Zoom Carts for Hybrid Instruction
Zooming into the Hybrid Present and Future
Hybrid instruction, where some students are present in a classroom and others participate remotely, increasingly looms large, presenting even more challenges. Classroom access and effective bridging of local and remote participants will be among the most critical and challenging questions. For example:
- Will students participate simultaneously in person and via computer?
- Will the in-person class engage in chat and breakout rooms with the remote participants?
To add additional flexibility in support of hybrid scenarios, the College has invested in a number of Zoom-enabled, all-in-one videoconferencing carts that can be added to teaching spaces.
These carts can function as a self-sufficient Zoom experience, and boast a camera and microphone that can capture all the participants in a classroom. The cart can function alone or be supplemental to other Zoom usage in a room by students and faculty with laptops, tablets, or smartphones.
Zoom Carts feature the following:
- Touch screen with shared digital whiteboard
- Wide-screen camera
- High-quality microphone to capture sound in a large room
- Special version of Zoom, called Zoom Rooms, where the instructor is not logged in as themselves but rather logged in as the location of the classroom meeting. It is an integrated experience for audio conferencing, wireless screen sharing, and video conferencing.
A select number of these devices are in use across the College this fall. To request a Zoom Cart, fill out the SmartSheet form hosted by Weinberg IT Solutions (WITS).
We Need Your Feedback about Zoom Carts
If you have used a Zoom Cart—or have reviewed the specifications of the Zoom Carts—please send feedback to the Weinberg College IT Solutions leadership team via wits@northwestern.edu. We rely on your feedback.
We would like to know what worked and what didn't work in the request process, in the functionality of the software, in the hardware supplied, with the support, or with anything else.
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