This session, How to Make Technology Sound and Enhance Student Achievement, is about classroom amplification technology and classroom acoustics can have dramatic student achievement effects. This is a very interesting topic, something that we know a little about in Hopkins with our Audio Enhancement systems that are installed at Tanglen Elementary.

The presenter, Dr. Paul McCarty from BYU, is discussing an unpublished study that summarizes some of the recent work that has been done in this area. There are many advantages to having an amplified classroom.

• More attentive students
• Less voice fatigue for teachers (less absenteeism)
• High achievement

The achievement gains seem to be more pronounced for upper elementary grades since oral instruction becomes more prevalent with older students. Quite a number of studies were quoted, but I don’t know of a particular Web site that lists them. I will attach a copy of a Classroom Amplification Fact Sheet (65kB) that I created to communicate with some folks in my district.