Across the lawn from the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, construction is underway to build what many consider to be Duke's first "classroom of the future." The desks will welcome laptops as readily as pen and paper, and chalk dust will be a thing of the past.
The Sanford Institute's new Susan Bennett King Multimedia and Instructional Technology Center, due to be finished in summer 2005, will put Duke ahead of other universities in the classroom technology race.
Although construction on the new building has already begun, many of its interior details remain undetermined. Developers are confident, however, that the new facility will provide the newest broadcasting and instructional technologies to students and faculty.
Plans call for on-site broadcast facilities with access to Duke's satellite up-links, video-conferencing and audio-conferencing facilities, wireless Internet access and networking and specialized projection equipment, said Karen Kemp, director of communications for the Sanford Institute. Also in the plans are "interactive whiteboard" technologies, which work like digital chalkboards. Professors can project and annotate images in real-time and then send the "whiteboard" via e-mail or Blackboard to students.
Planners for the new building, which will feature three large lecture halls and seven smaller seminar rooms, hope to use new technology to simplify teaching and learning by allowing students to focus on the content of the lecture rather than the mechanics of it, Kemp said.
Details for the center's technology are still on the drawing board. "There still needs to be some conversation about this--it's a little too premature," Kemp said. She added that there will be several meetings in the coming months to finalize plans for the center.
Kenneth Rogerson, a research associate in public policy, said he also thought the plans needed further development.
"By the time we build this center the technology will have changed, so there is no reason for us to have decided everything about it yet," he said.
The Coca-Cola Foundation is sponsoring part of the center to honor former Duke Trustee and Coca-Cola board member Susan King.
"This Center will enhance the technological capabilities of the Institute and... will be instrumental in communicating more effectively with national and international news media," a Coca-Cola representative wrote in a prepared statement.
Some Sanford faculty expressed reservations, however, about the need to integrate more technology into the classroom.
"In the end it will make teaching easier, but not everyone might be comfortable with it initially," Rogerson said.
Despite the uncertainties, he said he looks forward to the arrival of the new facilities. "I know I will certainly enjoy using all the new gadgets and gizmos," he said.
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