Nebraska District Adopts Audio Enhancement in Classrooms

Nebraska's Lincoln Public Schools has gone public with its implementation of an audio enhancement system that allows teachers' and students' voices to be more easily heard throughout the entire classroom, including behind face masks. The district is working with Audio Enhancement, a company that produces classroom AV products.

The teacher microphone system, which was adopted in 2016, consists of a lanyard-style microphone that teachers wear around their necks. With a touch of a button on the lanyard, teachers can pair the microphone with an Audio Enhancement amplifier and its related speakers to amplify their voices. The outcome is that students sitting anywhere in the room can hear their voices at the same volume.

The system can also offer the option of a student microphone that can be passed around the classroom so that students hear their peers' responses and feel like their voices are heard.

Audio Enhancement's system accommodates paired teacher microphones for those co-teaching with another instructor, making it simple for both instructors to engage with the classroom together.

"All students deserve to hear what their teachers and peers have to say without difficulty," said Stephen Joel, the district's superintendent, in a press release. "Audio Enhancement's teacher microphone system has allowed us to increase equitable audio access for all students in our classrooms, providing a much richer classroom experience that has translated to better outcomes for our students and teachers alike."

The school district is also currently testing two additional products from the company. The Signal Alert for Education (SAFE) System lets a teacher press buttons on the same lanyard microphone for three seconds, to alert school officials that help is needed. The office can then discreetly let teachers know via the lights on the microphone that help is on the way.

VIEWpath provides for video capture and recording, enabling teachers to record lessons in the classroom to share with students later. The system can also be used to record incidents as they occur.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • Building Beyond Simulation: Creating Immersive Ecosystems for Healthcare Education

    Health sciences education is one of the fastest-growing facility types in colleges and universities. The demand for medical, nursing, and allied health professionals is driving the creation and renovation of medical simulation training facilities that provide students with real-world experience through advanced simulation-based learning.

  • Tennessee Middle School Completes Health, Life Safety Renovations

    The Giles County Board of Education in Pulaski, Tenn., recently announced that a series of renovation projects has been completed at Bridgeforth Middle School, according to a news release. The district partnered with Wold Architects & Engineers and Brindley Construction to modernize building systems at one of the district’s oldest schools.

  • Amazon Expands Lockers to More Than 500 College, University Campuses

    Amazon recently announced that its Locker Network now totals more than 750 locations at more than 500 college and university campuses around the United States, according to a company news release.

  • University of Pennsylvania Releases Design of Future Physical Sciences Building

    The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in Philadelphia, Penn., recently released renderings of an upcoming 350,000-square-foot Physical Sciences Building, according to news release. The facility was designed by CO Architects and will unite the university’s departments of Physics and Astronomy, Mathematics, and Earth and Environmental Science.