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By John Chadwick

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When Luciane Castilho declares: \"Ol� classe,\" her students at Rutgers University-Newark crack open their books and laptops and begin conversing in Portuguese.

Some 30 miles away, students at Rutgers University-New Brunswick respond \"Ol�\" and jump right into the conversation.

\"Professor Castilho might seem like she's far away in Newark, but as far as we're concerned, she's right here interacting with us in New Brunswick,\" says Maximiliano Goiz, a School of Arts and Sciences senior who took Castilho's course, \"Portuguese for Business and Commerce,\" in the spring 2015 semester.

Indeed, from their classroom at the Institute for Global Languages, where a 12-foot-long video screen nearly covers one of the walls, Goiz and the other New Brunswick students were able to fully participate in the class as it unfolded in real time from Newark. They could make eye contact with their Newark counterparts, raise their hands and be called upon, and hear every nuance and inflection of Castilho's expert Portuguese dialect.

This high-definition exchange was accomplished through an innovative video conferencing system set up in both locations, allowing both the Newark and the New Brunswick students to seamlessly interact with each other.

Rutgers Collaborative VideoWalls

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