After COVID, IIDE wanted classrooms where the trainer could teach a room full of in-person students while also running remote students as a true part of the class, not a muted gallery. The default version of this — one laptop at the front with Zoom open — fails because the trainer can’t see or interact with remote students without turning their back on the room, and remote students can’t hear the classroom discussion because the mic picks up everyone as noise.
The layout
Remote students are projected on a wall at the back of the classroom, not the front. The trainer stands at the front of the room where they’d normally stand, and can turn naturally to address either half of the class. A second screen at the front mirrors the trainer’s laptop for the in-person students. A camera aimed at the class itself streams the room to the remote cohort. The geometry matters more than the hardware — once the projector is at the back, the trainer doesn’t break eye contact with anyone.
The microphones
The hard part was audio. Remote students need to hear any in-person student asking a question, from any seat in the room, without turning every interjection into feedback. I designed custom desk-mounted microphones — directional, low-profile, networked — that sit on multiple desks across the room and mix into the Zoom call intelligently. The enclosures were printed and finished to not look like a lab experiment.
The result
A classroom that actually works as a classroom with half the class somewhere else. Installed and deployed at IIDE.