Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1347119
April/May/June 2021 I 25 Control—Touchless and Cleanable Controls to Reduce Virus Transmission It should not have taken COVID-19 to make people think about how they expose themselves daily to transmission of colds and flu by touching common objects. Now that everyone is focused on the threat, there is a lot that can be done to mitigate it for AV systems used in academic and business settings. The option with the least impact to existing AV installations is to simply practice a rigorous cleaning regimen. Every supplier of AV control products has responded by publishing best practices for cleaning high-touch surfaces, such as button panels and touch- screens. In the U.S., recommended cleaning methods conform to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines and will not damage the surfaces. For new installations or retrofits, there are an array of no-touch options, including motion sensors, QR codes, automation, and remote control. These are explored in sample designs which follow. DESIGNS FOR TODAY'S LEARNING SPACES Sound Field Amplification—Hearing the Instructor's Voice Clearly, Even with a Mask Even in the best situations, it can be difficult for instructors to make sure every student in the classroom Audio Audio Switcher/Amplifier/DSP Speaker Storage/Streaming Processor or Conferencing Codec (Remote Learners) Wireless Pendant Mic Wireless Receiver Cat 6A Cat 6A Speaker LAN 1 LAN 3 LAN 2 LAN 4 DO NOT GROUND OR SHORT SPEAKER OUTPUTS 4/8 Ω HDMI HDMI 1/2 SIG LINK SIG LINK 3/4 5 6 INPUTS OUTPUT AUDIO OUT PVS 407D AMPLIFIED AUDIO OUT PAGING SENSOR PVT IN PVT IN L R AUX OVER PVT REMOTE VOICELIFT LAN INPUT 7 +V L R RS-232 Tx Rx IR S G G CLASS 2 WIRING LAN - - A MAX POWER 12V L R FIGURE 3: Classroom sound field amplification system. to every student in the classroom via ceiling speakers. The sound field system is easily integrated with streaming, storage, and conferencing processors to allow remote learners to hear the instructor with the same clarity, whether the lesson is live or recorded. The microphone has simple buttons for volume, mute, and record start/stop that allow instructors to control these functions without distracting from delivery of the lessons. Integrating Classroom AV with Unified Communications Platforms Educators that were not using unified communications (UC) platforms before COVID-19 got on-board almost overnight when the pandemic emptied classrooms in spring 2020. Many of those overnight adopters set up a laptop on their kitchen tables and ran one of the popular UC software apps (e.g., Zoom) with a personal user account. They interacted with remote learners through the laptop camera and microphone and showed lesson materials by sharing their laptop screens. It worked, but instructors had to juggle technical operation with teaching, which created big distractions. To eliminate such distractions to learning, a better way is to place the instructor back in a structured learning space for remote or hybrid learning. can hear them clearly. Now that instructors' voices are often muffled by their masks, this presents a new challenge. Instructors may strain their voices trying to be heard. Audiovisual solutions can come to the rescue with simple sound field ampli- fication systems like the one shown in Figure 3. These systems include a lightweight wireless pendant microphone that picks up the instructor's voice and boosts volume and clarity through digital signal processing and amplification, delivering consistent sound