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Barco’s education solutions are breaking ground in the Netherlands

Posted on Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Kortrijk, Belgium, 15 November 2016 – In the wake of the first successful projects in Belgium, Barco’s collaborative learning solutions are now finding their way to the Netherlands. From this month onwards, students at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (UAS) will be collaborating more closely than ever, thanks to Barco’s weConnect – a collaborative learning solution for higher education. “This really is the future of education,” says Harry Heldoorn, Account Manager Education at Fidato, the AV expert that introduced Rotterdam University to Barco’s education platform.

“We have to change our teaching methods to meet the needs of today’s tech-savvy students and the modern didactic methods of learning. As they are used to relying on media and mobile devices in their free time, students want to enjoy the comfort, freedom and flexibility of their devices in the classroom too,” says Herdey Ronowidjojo from Rotterdam University. “Moreover, we believe that participation and interactivity help enrich the learning experience — hence our European tender for interactive classroom technology.” Fidato, one of the university’s trusted AV suppliers, won the tender. They invited Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences to a showcase of Barco’s education solutions.

So easy to use

“We discovered Barco’s dedicated offering for education at ISE2016. Impressed, we immediately invited several of our customers to learn more about the solution,” Harry Heldoorn recalls. “Everyone agreed that the system is really ease to use, for teachers as well as students. Even more, intensive in-house testing also convinced us of its ability to be smoothly integrated into any network environment. This really is the future of education: students enjoy the interaction and teachers are eager to offer a more interactive, more collaborative learning experience – while remaining in charge of what goes on in the lecture room.”

BYOD, share wirelessly and collaborate
Barco’s weConnect is an infrastructure-light, cloud-operated system based on Barco’s expertise in visualization, wireless sharing (ClickShare) and connectivity. It allows teachers and students to bring their own devices - a Windows PC, a Mac or Chromebook, iOS or Android devices – to the classroom and wirelessly present their information on the classroom display, via an app. Using the simple, intuitive browser interface, the teacher can preview the content before it is shown on the wall. The system also allows students and teachers to work in groups, access any content, annotate it and store it locally on their devices or share notes with the class. Support for polls, real-time feedback and silent questions enable all students to be active learners during class — a feature that Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences greatly appreciates.

Dedicated to education
“We’ve seen solutions similar to the Barco platform before, but Barco’s offering is really dedicated to education and includes a standardized workflow,” says Herdey Ronowidjojo. From November onwards, students in Rotterdam will be able to use Barco’s weConnect in one of its lecture halls. Fidato also installed a trial set-up at the Dutch HAN Universities of Applied Sciences in Arnhem and Nijmegen and the University of Twente.

“In 2015, we launched the first pilot projects in educational facilities. Just one year later, universities around the world are embracing our collaborative learning solutions. This interest confirms that Barco can really help schools replace the traditional model of lecture-based learning with more interactive, collaborative learning models,” says Wim Barbaix, Barco’s Business Development Manager of Education/Collaborative Learning.