IUPUI Opens Greenwood Center for Classes, Hosts March 26 Open House

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Inside the Greenwood Learning Center

Continuing a longtime tradition of scheduling classes at times and locations convenient for learners, IUPUI has opened a learning center in Johnson County that offers both credit and noncredit courses in high-tech classrooms.

IUPUI’s Community Learning Network will host an open house from 3 to 5 p.m., Friday, March 26, 2010, at its Greenwood Learning Center, 555 E. County Line Road. The facility is located in the Indiana American Office Park at County Line Road and Airport Parkway.

Chancellor Charles R. Bantz, Greenwood Mayor Charles Henderson, students and an instructor will present brief remarks at a 3:30 p.m. program during the open house.

Open House visitors will have the opportunity to tour the 8,257 square-foot facility which houses six classrooms including a room for fitness classes; a student lounge with TV and computer stations; and an advising room.

“The rooms are equipped with the latest in technology – including wireless internet access – to make the classroom experience better and easier for students as well as faculty members. The center’s classrooms have every piece of technology faculty could want – DVD, computer, interactive overhead projector. No chalkboards, no white boards . . . It is all interactive. They have taken the smart board off the wall and put it in the monitor at the instructor’s podium,” says Shohn Beeson, Greenwood Learning Center manager.

Using an electronic “pen” instead of chalk or a dry erase marker, instructors can write on an electronic pad and simultaneously project the writing on a wall screen. If needed, text recognition software is available to transcribe handwriting into legible lettering.

Instructors can easily extract information from other sources, including the Web and power point presentations, and incorporate it into screen presentations.

“I love the technology,” says Mary Fisher, who is enrolled in a conversational Spanish class at the Greenwood Center. “The instructor uses the electronic (pad) to write the Spanish words and verb conjugations for the class as we are saying them. She can switch from one ‘page’ to the next so we can go back to previous pages to review something. The rooms are well equipped, the chairs and tables comfortable and mobile. I love the center.”

Greenwood Learning Center classrooms can accommodate 28 to 40 students each, depending on room size. Two adjoining rooms share a moveable wall that can be stored to create one room that can accommodate 64 people. During normal operating hours, community groups can also use Greenwood Learning Center classrooms based on availability, Beeson says.

As more academic departments schedule courses at the south side center, plans call for area students to be able to take all their basic undergraduate courses at the Greenwood center.