For California State University, Fresno, rolling out smart classrooms is just the beginning. The university plans to have a collaboration classroom in its math and science department ready this spring, and a second collaboration classroom in the education department is scheduled for completion this summer.

The collaboration classroom will consist of small pods of students sitting at reconfigurable tables and chairs. Each pod will have electronic outlets for student notebook computers, as well as Internet access and a quick connection to a screen located at each pod, linking to the classroom projector. The professor can select and display table-specific information for the entire class to view.

“The instructor will not traditionally stand in front of the room and lecture,” says Randy Mills, Fresno State’s broadcast engineer. “The general idea of these collaboration classrooms...