In his previous position as the superintendent of schools in Sussex County, New Jersey, Steven Engravalle saw first-hand the implications of the blending worlds of A/V and IT.
As the school system transitioned from independent A/V and IT systems to combined network solutions, the school system’s lead A/V technician struggled to adapt.
“I basically paced him out of the market because [the district] became so advanced… the work was just too high level for him,” said Engravalle, now the interim superintendent at Fort Lee Public Schools in New Jersey. “You either grow or you stay the same and he just couldn’t keep up.”
Such stories aren’t unusual. In the last decade, as information signals have changed from analog to digital signals, the A/V and IT delivery technologies have blended so much so that the two fields are now essentially one, said Jonathan Joyce of New York-based commercial integration firm JD Professional Systems.
“My projectors now are all HDMI ports, projecting my laptops or my flatscreens [and are] tied into my internet —– its really become one.” Steven Engravalle, Interim Superintendent, Fort Lee (NJ) Public Schools
“Pretty much almost every single A/V component out there right now… has some sort of IT data connection,” Joyce said. Instead of transmitting as analog sine waves, this new world of (almost) completely digital data transmits over an IT framework that works like an internet structure, with each output node —– be it a computer, a projector or a flatscreen digital display —– on the network having an individual IP address.
“Everything’s melding into one big lump,” Joyce said.
In some instances, the transition has created tension between competing departments within schools, and administrators have dealt with it according to their level of technological competence.
“It’s become a necessity to learn the other trade, or at least have a good relationship with the other department,” said Joyce.
“I don’t know if there’s any set game plan, it’s probably a reflection of their degree of integration,” said Tim Ridgway, the Vice President of Marketing for Califone, a developer and manufacturer of school equipment including audio/visual technologies.
This convergence has also created problems for administrators who might know they want a bunch of new equipment but don’t know – or don’t care – that many commercial integrators come from A/V backgrounds and do not have an innate familiarity or comfort with IT solutions.
“It actually creates a big challenge,” said Anthony Cortes, the Director of Sales and Marketing, K-12 Classroom Systems for Extron Electronics, a leading vendor of control systems. “We’ve been making that statement that if you’re an A/V company you need to adopt some sort of IT experience. Because it’s going that route and if you don’t you’re going to be left behind, it’s just the way the market’s going. It’s not something that we’re predicting, it’s something that’s happening today.”
To circumvent potential communication issues, schools need to find integrators who can think of the solutions from an educator’s point of view.
“I think there’s a divide between equipment and usage and students,” said Patti Palancia, an education consultant for A/V integration leader AVI-SPL. “As integrators, you have to look at what the student learning outcomes are going to be from what you’re going to install. So it’s not about the equipment, and it’s not about the projector. It’s about what is going to make a difference for the student. How are the teachers going to be able to use this technology for student learning gains. And that’s the biggest gap.
“It’s been an interesting shift over the last 10, 20 years,” said Ridgway.“But as the systems are beginning to spill into other areas, and as teaching itself is changing, the two are beginning to converge or have more overlap than they historically have.”
As Engravalle sees it, A/V is a dead terminology and not worth clinging to.
“It’s really become IT only,” he said. “My projectors now are all HDMI ports, projecting my laptops or my flatscreens [and are] tied into my internet —– its really become one.”
And Engravalle offers a word of advice, albeit one that might be hard to stomach for some.
“It just became obsolete, that (dedicated) A/V position,” Engravalle said. “What doesn’t grow dies, so you have to be constantly evolving… You can’t become the dinosaur, because if you become the dinosaur and you get stuck in the tar pit you know what happens.”
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