Meru had a booth at the National Education Computing Conference in Washington, DC which was held at the end of June. NECC is the largest national education event and draws educators, school IT directors and technology coordinators from around the world.
The exhibit floor displayed an enormous amount of technology which is available to schools these days. All the vendors focused specifically on their products, however, Meru took a different approach and worked with a number of technology partners to demonstrate how multiple types of technologies work together to create a stimulating and collaborative classroom, all relying on wireless LAN.
The theme was ‘Wi-Fi™ as an Instructional Technology’ and demonstrated the 21st Century Classroom with the delivery of multiple types of content to various wireless devices, simultaneously over a single 802.11n access point.
Demonstrations included:
- Unicast 3D video content from a Safari Montage server, through a Force10 switch and over a Meru AP320. The AV Rover had a server with 802.11g interface and a BenQ 3D projector. The system uses DLP glasses for the ultimate 3D viewing.
- Multicast video streaming of learning video content from Safari Montage server over 802.11n to (3) 11n laptops.
- Multiple Unicast video streams to a Safari Montage kiosk, including Meru’s WiFi Revolution, Fusion & Safari Montage videos.
- Unicast video streams of learning video content from the Safari Montage server to (2) BenQ Netbook PCs with 802.11g interfaces.
- VoIP using (3) Hitachi 802.11b SIP phones connected to a ShoreTel PBX
Technology partners included:
- Safari Montage streaming media, including 3D media with DLP glasses
- Force10 switch
- AV Rover 3D projector
- Polyvision smart board
- BenQ 3D projector and Netbook PCs
- ShoreTel PBX
- Hitachi WiFi phones
Meru’s local reseller, Fusion Networks who has deployed a number of large school districts with Meru was there to help with the setup of the demos, along with assistance from Safari Montage and AV Rover.
It’s clear that the classroom of the 21st Century will be jammed packed with various technologies to deliver content and improve collaborative learning at a level that children use everyday. These new education systems will be dependent on this new technology for curriculum delivery and on-line testing, so it needs to meet business critical requirements and reliability. Seamlessly supporting all types of devices and applications simultaneously over wireless LAN with the reliability and predictability of a wired infrastructure is crucial if Wi-Fi™ will be used as an Instructional technology.
