The traditional classroom may become extinct given the popularity of the new renovations to Morris Library.

From the projector screens to the desks, everything seems to be designed to make life easier for the math students shuffling into the room. The only familiar items in the entire classroom may be the standard SIU wall clock and the trash receptacle next to the door.

Math Lecturer Rob Dean teaches three sections of MATH 108 in the classroom with about 35 students per class. Dean said he used to be constrained by a classroom with textbooks and chalkboards, but is now taking full advantage of the new tools at his disposal.

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The room features a black touch screen which acts as a control center for the room. There are outlets about every 20 feet, with outlet hubs in the floor that run down the center of the classroom. USB ports, HDMI ports and a port to connect laptops are built into the wall.

Each desk is designed to allow students optimal mobility, almost like an office chair/school desk hybrid. The desk itself is on rollers, allowing the desk to move anywhere in the classroom. Each seat and writing surface is on a swivel to allow student’s free range of movement.

Two adjacent walls have projectors and two opposite walls have glass boards for dry-erase markers.

Each projector is used to display lessons and texts the teacher can both refer to and write on using smart notebook technology and a stylus.

Dean said he roams from projector to marker board to smart notebook and still has plenty of room for the students to sit.

“We’ve come a long way, in a good way,” he said.

Lecturer Krystal Caronongan also teaches four sections of MATH 108 and said she considers herself to be tech savvy. Instead of using the smart notebook, as does Dean, she syncs her own personal iPad with the projector and laptop, and uses it to make notes on lesson text.

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“This is so much easier. I mean with a chalkboard setting, there’s so much extra writing that has to be done,” she said. “Like, if you’re doing a word problem, then you have to write the whole thing out, even if they have lecture notes, just so they can see the pieces that you’re talking about. With this, I can just display it, they already have it in their notes and we can just go start solving problems.”

Caronongan said she loves the new technology in the classrooms and likes how it eases some student’ burdens.

“We’re trying to go paperless as much as possible and cut down on the cost of them having to buy textbooks,” she said.

Dan Mussa, project director of computer-aided instruction, is excited about the direction the project is headed and wants to see more classrooms like the ones already in place.

“We’re definitely looking towards the future with this program,” he said.

Still, the classes have problems, mainly in the form of equipment not functioning properly, Caronongen said. She said such issues are few and far between.

“It’s rare. Today was the first time that anything ever froze,” she said. “When we were still getting off the ground there were still some technical difficulties sometimes, where one piece of the room wasn’t working so you couldn’t access the projector, but everything’s pretty much smoothed over since then.”

For now, the library is being used primarily for entry-level classes but floors six and seven are still considered in the test run stage, Mussa said.

Mussa said future semesters should bring expansion in terms of the number of classes held in the library and the number of students with access to the facilities as long as everything continues to run smoothly.