Joe Way: UCLA’s $4.3 Million Pilot to Upgrade Classrooms

When Joe Way joined UCLA in fall 2023, he was tasked with developing a strategy to modernize classrooms with new audiovisual technology. The goal was to build flexible learning spaces that support traditional lectures, active and collaborative learning, hybrid instruction, and lecture capture.

He discovered that 65% of the classrooms were equipped with AV technology that was at least 20 years old, and that projectors were often left running over nights and weekends, wasting energy and shortening equipment life.

Last fall, UCLA launched a $4.3 million pilot to upgrade seven general-assignment classrooms with AV over IP solutions that include new displays, projectors, pan-tilt-zoom cameras, speakers, microphones and control systems — all connected across a standard Ethernet network rather than a jumble of cables feeding into an AV rack. AVoIP enabled the software-based control and automation.

Listen to the EdTech podcast here.