The Future of Education: White Light’s SmartStage positions virtual learning as a key offering at Michigan Ross University

The LED studio lighting system is pixel mapped to allow the team to extend the environment for greater flexibility, while the two camera system – including a 6’ jib and rolling dolly, both with tracking system – gives the ability to cut between perspectives and allows the lecturer to move freely around the set. The system also features wireless touchscreen control interface for faculty driven control of the environment and SmartStage® features during presentations, and audio integration with in-ear monitors for the lecturer to hear and interact with their students naturally. The 4mx4m installation into a small room was not without some challenges. Such as fitting the lighting equipment into a low 2.5m ceiling height, but the White Light team overcame all issues to achieve a seamless installation. Although in a small space, the SmartStage® appears infinitely spacious to the distancer learners. As space is premium at Universities, SmartStage® allows Michigan Ross to have a fully flexible asset in a limited space. White Light also fitted the servers with complete redundancy to guarantee 100% uptime in the event of any errors or failures. Additionally, White Light built the entire system to be supported remotely; everything in the space including lighting, vision mixers, cameras and servers, are shown in the control centre in London. Should there be an issue, White Light support, including proactive maintenance and monitoring to keep the entire system up to date and functioning is available, if needed, from nearly 4000 miles away. In June 2019, the installation was completed over the course of a week, with White Light also providing on-site training to the team at Michigan Ross. White Light also fitted the SmartStage® with a variety of content including various studio templates for the team to play with. The system is integrated with Zoom video conferencing software for the students. They login to the online lecture through Zoom, and can immediately see the lecturer and themselves within a 360-degree lecture hall space, enabling instant engagement and discussion. The lecturer’s presentations are also visible inside the virtual environment. One of the big advantages of the system for Michigan Ross is that students actually like that they are part of the lecture – they appear ‘on stage’ as part of the content so the faculty and their peers can see them, and they can see themselves, which helps make them pay attention and not hide behind a video conference call like other remote learning platforms. This makes a huge difference to learning and helps to bridge the gap between the ‘real’ and virtual teaching environments by making it feel as close as possible to traditional lecture theatre environments.