Was It Worth It? The Pros and Cons of the newly installed microphones.

After extensive construction to the school, many changes were brought about here, including new microphones installed in each classroom.

 

In a press conference with the publication class on August 28, Principal Don Stensrud said that there are at least four round speakers in each classroom to project the teacher’s voice evenly throughout the room.

 

“Once you go past 10 feet from where a person is speaking, sound drops off almost 50%. If you go 20 feet, it drops off about 75%. So the people back there can’t hear me as well as you guys right here,” Stensrud said.

 

The school used the tax dollars effectively. given that an exorbitant amount of money was spent on installing not only the microphones but also the whole sound system which was required in each classroom to make the microphones effective.

 

Each classroom needed an entire sound system to make the microphones effective, spending

 

The purpose of the microphones is to better students learning, but no one noticed.

 

Charlotte Scott, a junior, has teachers using microphones in the majority of her classes. She did not have any teachers using microphones in previous years.

 

“I haven’t noticed a big difference, I think like the people in the back probably can hear better which could be good,” Scott said.

 

Ellie Bleichman, a freshman, has teachers in all of her classes using microphones. She had teachers in her middle school using microphones since she was in seventh grade.

 

Bleichman said, “I can’t really remember what it was like without them.”

 

Angela Hunt, Pre IB Language Arts teacher, uses a microphone whenever teaching. Hunt used a microphone previously when teaching at University of Colorado Boulder.

 

She said that using the microphones make her throat hurt much less at the end of the day. The microphones were initially designed to benefit the students but it seems teachers are getting more of an improved experience than the students are.

 

“You have to think about the benefits for the teacher versus the benefits for the students. For me, as a teacher, it’s really nice not to be in pain. For the students I feel like if I use the microphone, probably everyone can hear me even when there are really annoying people who talk over me,” Hunt said.

 

Hunt also said she forgets to turn off her microphone, especially when she switches classrooms with another teacher. Because the microphones still work even when the person using them leaves the classroom, this detracts from students learning.

 

“It’s really funny when we forget we have our microphones on and then we have them on when we go to the bathroom because then it goes into those bathrooms. This morning I had my mike on and Ms. Roitz was like ‘I knew somebody was wearing their mike and they were walking really fast’ because she could hear it bouncing because she was in the classroom that I had just been in,” Hunt said.

 

Hunt also said that she uses the microphones singing “happy birthday” because she likes the way it sounds as well as just improving the academic learning for her students.