OWL Technology in the Classroom

Shippensburg University has implemented the Meeting Owl Pro in the majority of its classrooms in order to accommodate students who elect to participate in classes remotely.

The Meeting Owl Pro is an all-in-one tracking camera/microphone system that connects to Zoom on the classroom instructor’s station. The camera is designed to track one or more active speakers by tracking the location of their voice(s) in the room. The camera then focuses on and tracks their movement, providing a clear image of in-room participants to those who are remotely connected to Zoom.

The microphone in Meeting Owl Pro is designed to capture speech and audio from 15+ feet away, making it a robust solution to streaming classes and capturing both student and faculty input.
How it works

The video below outlines how classrooms will look for Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, including a demo and description of the Meeting Owl Pro.

Faculty training/support
Faculty wishing to learn more about using the Meeting Owl Pro in their assigned classrooms can view the recording of the Meeting Owl & Classroom Technology Demo/Training held in late July 2020.

Those interested in using a secondary device, such as a tablet or laptop, to help moderate Zoom sessions and/or share content wirelessly can view the walkthrough video below created by Dr. Kimberly Presser from the Mathematics department.

Sharing content
Faculty who are utilizing classrooms that have students participating remotely are encouraged to use the Share Screen function in Zoom. This ensures that students who are attending in-person can see content being shared from the computer via the projection screen, and that remote participants in Zoom can also see the screen.

This is particularly important when using the whiteboard. Rather than using the traditional whiteboard or chalkboard in a room, consider alternative digital whiteboarding programs. One example is the whiteboard built into Zoom – just click on Share Screen and choose the Whiteboard option.

All classrooms have been outfitted with a touchscreen display, so faculty have the option to use their finger or any capacitive stylus to write or draw on the screen. This works in any whiteboard software as well as in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and a variety of other applications.