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Setting Up the Furniture
The Learning Theatre is designed to be reconfigured as needed by each class session, so you’ll find folding tables and stacking chairs stored on the left side of the room — ready to be arranged.
I typically:
- Open the sliding glass doors at the rear of the room wide to create a bit more space to spread out.
- Turn on the lights using the control panel at the left rear corner of the room.
- Arrange the tables and chairs. There are 10 rolling tables and about 50 chairs, so for a group of 40 students, we could use:
- 10 tables 4 chairs at each table. (I prefer this arrangement, but it could get tight on space. It’s OK to spill out into the lobby to create more space.
- 40 chairs set up in rows — say 3 or 4 rows that curve toward the front — like an auditorium
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Setting up the Projection Wall
One of the key features of this special room is a huge project wall composed of a grid of monitors (24 wide x 7 tall) that can work as one big continuous screen — displaying inputs from a single computer or several computers.
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- You can connect your computer to HDMI ports in wall plates mounted below the screens.
- Wall Plate 1 is at the left front side, and Wall Plate 2 is at the right front side.
- Either wall plate connection will work, but one difference between the two is:
- Wall Plate 1 (left side) supports a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080
- Wall Plate 2 (right side) supports a screen resolution of 1280 x 720
- So, if you need a big screen resolution, use Wall Plate 1
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- Several HDMI cables are provided in the room or you can bring your own. These cables are stored in a drawer labeled “HDMI” in a hidden cabinet at the front right corner of the room.
- Each of the provided cables can be plugged directly into the HDMI port on your computer.
- Or, if your computer does not have an HDMI port, an HDMI-to-USBC adapter is attached to the cable that will enable you to use a USBC port.
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- The Projection Wall is configured using a big touchscreen panel at the front right corner of the room. The touchscreen appears to be water damaged, but it still works. Just touch the screen, and it will power up.
- On the first screen, tap Power On to power up the Projection Wall.
- On the next screen, you’ll be asked to Select Source for the video projection. Select either wallplate 1 or wallplate2 depending on whether you’ve connected to the left or right wall plate.
- On the next screen, you’ll be presented with choices for setting up how video inputs are displayed on the Projection Wall. You can Add Screen or Delete Screen to set this up manually — but you don’t need to — we’ve set up several Templates that are pre-configured. Tap the OCDM button at the bottom of the screen to access these pre-configured templates.
- This OCDM screen lets you configure all aspects of how your video inputs are displayed on the Projection Wall (if needed). But, you typically won’t need to adjust these. Rather, click the Recall Template button to bring up a menu of stored templates.
- You can recall a template by name — CEE176G - 3 Screens and CEE176G - One Screen appear at the top of the list. Just tap the name, and it will be used.
- Or, you can browse thru pages of available templates. CEE176G -3 Screens is template 19, and CEE 176G - One Screen is template 18.
- I typically use the CEE176G - 3 Screens template for most class activities.
- After you’ve selected a template, the Projection Wall will display that configuration.
- Tap OCDM to return to the OCDM screen.
- You’ll probably be fine with the stored template settings, but if you need to adjust anything about the video inputs being projected, the OCDM screen is the place to do it. To adjust any of the virtual screens:
- Tap the virtual screen to select it.
- Then tap one of the settings buttons to adjust it.
- The most common things that I adjust are:
- Source — to change the input source for that virtual screen. For example, if you’re using several computers, you can choose wallplate 1 as the source for some virtual screens and wallplate 2 as the source for others.
- Resize — to change the size of the selected virtual screen. For example, if you’d like one of the virtual screens to be extra large and the others smaller.
- Move — to change the position of the virtual screens on the Projection Wall.
- It alls sounds a bit intimidating at first, but the interface is actually pretty intuitive — after you’ve used it once or twice.
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Room Reset
At the end of the class session, have students:
- Fold up all the tables and store them on the left side of the room
- Stack all the chairs on the left side of the room
Power off the projection wall.
Close the sliding glass doors at the rear of the room.
