You Need Classroom Design Standards & It May Just Result In a Raise

Developing standards for classroom technology can be time-consuming and frustrating. On one hand, it limits the scope of how you, as a classroom technology manager, can design a room and with what types of product. On the other hand…well, there are more positives than can fit in that other hand. If you haven’t been reading Greg Brown’s blog series on the InfoComm website, you should. He has been detailing and reviewing guidelines and best practices to use to develop technology standards across campus. Greg’s expertise is evident; and I recommend that you contact him with any questions about creating room standards.Backing up a bit, before you get to “How do I create classroom standards?”, the initial question typically is, “Why do I need to spend the time developing standard classroom designs?” Regardless of the size of your school, creating consistent “technology templates” for your classrooms will take some of the daily challenges out of your professional life.  Here’s how:

1) Reduces training time necessary for faculty and staff: Consistency across classrooms offers you the ability to train end users on equipment that they will see in every room, regardless of floor or building. Keeping in mind that classrooms of different sizes, uses and layouts will require different equipment, work on creating different tiers of standards. Keep a description of these standards in a location that is easily accessible for faculty and staff (school website?). This allows them to review the equipment and come to you with questions prior to the beginning of a class, rather than call you with an emergency 10 minutes after class begins. Don’t forget to keep the user interface of any control system consistent as well! Once they have been trained on the standard designs, they are less likely to have concerns about walking into almost any room on campus. Another plus: some manufacturers offer additional training sessions (considered professional development?) covering how to integrate their technology equipment into lesson plans.

2) Manages expectations of faculty: Similar to reducing the amount of time spent training instructors and staff, keeping consistency across campus allows you to manage the expectations that the users have of the...