Category: Audio Conferencing

Schools are noisy places that can make communication between teacher and student nearly impossible at times. Although you can’t see it, poor audio has major, lingering effects on students who can’t cut through the noise. These students tend to perform worse academically and may disengage from learning altogether – an outcome all educators seek to avoid.

On the teacher’s side, it’s not much better. During times of peak noise, teachers tend to raise their voice, which can affect the student-teacher relationship and the teacher’s vocal cords. More than 600,000 educators take at least one sick day every year for voice reasons, and emerging voice issues can accelerate teacher burnout.

Audio enhancement technology can mitigate these concerns on both sides. With better audio, students remain focused and engaged. And teachers can instruct in a conversational tone that promotes better lesson delivery.

Most Classrooms Have Audio Problems

Even if it isn’t obvious, it’s likely that your classrooms also have audio problems. According to a mountain of research, the typical student misses about 25 percent of what the teacher says. For students in the back, this number can climb up to 40 percent. With this data, it’s easy to understand why students in the back row are more likely to develop behavior problems.

Distance isn’t the only issue, either. Background noise can interfere with lessons, whether it’s coming from passing traffic outside or students in the hallway. Poor acoustics are yet another issue, as most classrooms weren’t designed with sound quality in mind.

These issues are made worse when you consider hearing development in children. Most people aren’t fully developed from a hearing standpoint until their teenage years. Younger students also do not have the vocabulary to substitute in words that they can’t hear, making retention even more difficult.

Audio Enhancement Solutions That Provide Better Sound in Classrooms

An audio enhancement solution is one way to minimize interference and allow students to hear the lesson effectively. Some leading solutions include:

• Audio Enhancement’s Optimum system – Audio Enhancement has been a leader in audio enhancement solutions for decades. The company has done extensive research on the effects of audio in the classroom (the company’s founder created the business to help her two deaf sons) and has produced several sound-improving solutions with that research.

The brand’s leading audio enhancement solution is its Optimum system, though the company also offers several scaled back models built on the Optimum platform.
The Optimum system includes a receiver, an amplifier, microphones, speakers and control devices (like a wall plate or touchscreen). Together, these components allow the teacher to press a button and be heard everywhere in the classroom without raising their voice.

Even better, the Optimum system is designed to integrate with the school’s communications at a schoolwide level. For example, The Optimum system allows for two-way communication between front office and classroom, so teachers can respond without leaving their students. The Optimum solution can also be used to send emergency alerts from or to the classroom, leveraging the room’s displays simultaneously to produce an immediate response. The Optimum can even be integrated with the school’s class bells, so any sound can be used for them.

The goal is better audio, and the Optimum microphone and speaker combination ensure perfect volume and coverage in every space.

• FrontRow’s ezRoom system – FrontRow is another primary audio enhancement technology provider, and it also produces several systems designed for education. One of its most popular solutions is its ezRoom system, which offers an ideal mix of usability and clarity.

The ezRoom system is prewired for easy ceiling placement and is designed to be an all-in-one AV control solution. Through the ezRoom, educators can control the room’s displays, cameras, lighting, and audio technology, producing the best instruction experience possible. There’s practically no learning curve, either, as the ezRoom is designed to function as intended right out of the box. There’s no complicated device wiring to account for.

Like Audio Enhancement’s Optimum solution, the ezRoom can also be used to deliver emergency alerts and facilitate two-way communication during paging.

• FrontRow’s Juno system – FrontRow also produces audio solutions designed for extremely fast setup. Its Juno solution is one example. The Juno is a standalone tower speaker that can be placed anywhere in the classroom and can be set up in just minutes. Once installed, the Juno leverages its best-in-class audio hardware to remove echo and propagate sound more efficiently through the room. The result is an ideal classroom environment for learning.

The Juno also uses a worn microphone to channel sound through the speaker. When the instructor does speak, Juno automatically suppresses audio from other classroom sources to ensure the educator can be heard.

Modern Audio Technology Provides Additional Features That Can Help Teachers

The benefits of audio enhancement equipment go far beyond better sound. Solutions like the Optimum and Juno can also record video of the teacher during instruction. This video can be used like a tool by the instructor to improve their lesson delivery. It can also be delivered to remote students to help with their study efforts. Recorded content can also be a strong lesson-reinforcer even for those attending class in-person.

Don’t Allow Poor Audio to Cause Learning Challenges

It’s a challenge to be heard in modern schools. Classroom audio solutions can meet this challenge by amplifying teacher voices and giving students exactly what they need to learn – high-clarity audio that delivers every spoken word without interference.

Video conferencing is getting a lot of attention these days, and for good reason, but audio conferencing is still relevant. That’s partly because audio conferencing and video conferencing solutions aren’t necessarily replacements for each other. Instead, for many organizations, they are cost effective complements.

As useful and engaging as video conferencing can be, there are times where an audio-only conference is not only sufficient, but preferred. For example, it’s still a common communication choice for educational departments, for technical discussions, for sales calls and more. There are many settings where audio is enough.

Three Reasons Why Audio Conferencing Can Still Play A Vital Role

Many organizations may wonder why they should bother investing in audio conferencing if a video conferencing solution can deliver both parts of the AV equation. Isn’t audio conferencing a redundant piece of technology if video conferencing is present? In most organizations, the answer is no. Audio conferencing offers a few advantages that make it worth considering, including these three reasons:

1. It’s simple to use and control – One of the reasons why older technology remains relevant is because it’s proven. Conference calls have been around for decades, so people of all generations are familiar with them. Therefore, it’s generally easy to get people to adopt an audio conferencing solution and utilize it regularly. Further, because audio conferencing technology is pretty basic from a control standpoint, your IT personnel will spend less time responding to issues with the technology.

2. It provides unmatched voice quality – Modern video conferencing solutions leverage the internet to facilitate calls and deliver excellent audio quality, as long as your organization’s network can handle the data. Audio conferencing solutions can either use the internet or participants can be patched into the call individually. In either case, because audio is the only data being sent, fewer network resources are needed to ensure the data arrives intact.

It’s easier to guarantee strong audio quality when utilizing an audio conferencing solution. Video conferencing is still extremely reliable, but when network hiccups do occur, they can interfere with audio integrity. Audio conferencing, then, tends to maintain better audio in the aggregate.

3. It is affordable – Audio conferencing solutions are among the most affordable AV technologies available. This affordability advantage is especially true now, as video conferencing solutions are in demand around the world. Audio conferencing is often seen as an inferior option if video conferencing is available, but if your teams can communicate effectively with audio conferencing technology, then the technology can be too cost-effective to pass up.

However, there’s no need to reject either video or audio conferencing in favor of the other, as both can serve in different roles for an organization.

Audio conferencing? Video conferencing? Why not both?

There’s room for most organizations to fit audio and video conferencing into a single AV solution. It may not be immediately clear why businesses and schools would consider such a move, but here are a few reasons why it makes sense:

• Audio and video conferencing offer complementary strengths – Video conferencing may seem like the superior choice in every situation, but plenty of communication between team members can be handled without video. In these instances, audio conferencing solutions can be a viable alternative because for many people, they can set up a conference call faster than a video conference. There’s an efficiency advantage, and audio conferencing is also a good option when discussing technical material or data, as it offers excellent audio quality and clarity.
  Video conferencing has its own obvious advantages. The only way to get a true face-to-face conversation remotely is with video conferencing, and people respond well to such communication. During a video conference, it’s also easier to keep track of who is speaking. Also important, modern video conferencing solutions are designed with a lot of useful features, including the ability to connect additional devices and share content.
  Together, audio and video conferencing can do more than either one can on their own, and with both, your teams can effectively communicate the way they prefer.
• Audio conferencing is an affordable backup plan – Even if your teams rely solely on video conferencing, an audio conferencing system ensures that they can communicate should network, hardware or user issues interfere with plan A. As audio conferencing is affordable, it makes for a low-cost, high-reliability backup when it’s needed.
• An integrator can package together for extra cost efficiency – Audio conferencing is cost effective, and even more so when a certified integrator makes it part of a larger integration project. An AV integrator can design a larger solution where audio conferencing is just one component, and an experienced integrator can make hardware selection, placement, installation and configuration decisions that reduce the overall operational cost of audio conferencing solutions.

A Certified AV Integrator Can Build A Complete Communication Solution

Audio conferencing is still relevant and still effective, but like all AV solutions, it is most effective when it’s properly integrated into a larger AV solution and into an organization’s existing technological infrastructure. Certified AV integrators are the experts in this area and can improve your project’s outcome in the following ways:

• By streamlining the process – Even the simplest AV solutions are rarely that simple. The system must first be visualized and designed, then obsolete technology and cables must be removed, new hardware selected and procured, and everything installed and configured. Some of these steps include additional parties that must be communicated with, like equipment vendors, and it’s inevitable that delays or roadblocks will present themselves. With a certified AV integrator overseeing the project, though, these obstacles can be mitigated without anyone in your organization wasting their time dealing with them.
• By meeting your organization’s exact AV needs – Before embarking on an audio conferencing project, or any AV project, a certified integrator will first work to understand what their client needs from the technology. Experienced integrators place a lot of importance on planning and communication with the client because the system’s design must fulfill the client’s objectives. That’s why system design comes after consultation and not before. This way, your organization’s needs are prioritized before any design or installation begins.
• By providing ongoing support and training – Following system integration, a certified integrator will train your people on how to use the technology to its full potential. Training introduces users to the system, and during this training, the user’s role relative to the technology is considered, so training material is developed with the audience in mind. This makes it easier for users to understand and access only the features they need, which improves user adoption and reduces the intimidation factor that comes with a new process.
  Further, AV integrators can provide ongoing support and maintenance for the solutions they implement. This includes preventive maintenance, which can identify and solve performance issues before they cause downtime.

AV moves faster than most industries, but time hasn’t passed by audio conferencing. It’s still an effective communication tool, particularly when it’s paired with other AV technologies. It’s reliable, it’s affordable and it’s proven – so it’s a worthwhile consideration for most organizations.

While schools and businesses have changed the way they communicate remotely with students and employees, one of the biggest challenges on many platforms can be audio feedback. The task then becomes identifying and finding an audio solution that enables feedback suppression.

What Is Feedback Suppression?

Feedback suppression is the act of eliminating audio feedback. AV integrators are experts at dealing with the issue and can improve feedback suppression in a variety of ways. They will consider such things as the acoustics of the room and the placement of speakers when determining the best solution.

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, many schools and businesses are increasingly turning to specially designed audio solutions for feedback suppression. This allows meetings, class and collaboration to continue without the interference of audio feedback.

All About Audio Feedback

Whether it is in an in person, virtual, or hybrid meeting or class, it is becoming increasingly common to at some point hear a high pitch ear splitting sound, more commonly known as audio feedback.

Some situations that may cause audio feedback can include having:

• Phone and computer audio live at the same time
• Multiple computers with audio enabled operating at the same time in the same room
• Speakers in too close of proximity of one another
• A microphone too close to a speaker
• Inefficient acoustics in a conference, meeting, or classroom space

How Audio Feedback Can Be A Hindrance at School and Work

An in-person or online class, meeting or event experiencing audio feedback presents problems that can affect its success, such as:

• Participants turning down the volume and not turning it back up for several minutes until they are sure the sound is gone, which may result in them missing out on critical information in the meantime.
• Participants leaving a virtual meeting thinking it is an issue on their side and then not being able to effectively return if they are not readmitted to the meeting by a moderator.
• Participants leaving a virtual meeting if audio feedback is a recurring problem. That student or employee is then out of the loop on the information being presented.

No classroom or boardroom can risk losing the productivity of students and employees due to annoying feedback, which can be resolved with the help of an experienced AV integrator.

Audio Solutions for Feedback Suppression

As our normal routines and operations have changed since early 2020, the need for feedback suppression has increased as hybrid learning and remote video collaboration have become the new normal. When an AV integrator is called in to help, they may suggest one of the following options:

Biamp Crowd Mics is an app-based solution that connects classroom or meeting presenters with participants via a wireless network. Essentially, this technology allows an individual’s smartphone to become a personal microphone and a meeting engagement tool. Some of the benefits for utilizing Biamp Crowd Mics include:

• Personal microphone access for moderators and participants
• Text capabilities for meeting participants who do not wish to speak aloud
• Increased control over the pace and conversation flow of a meeting by a moderator who can mute mics and open select mics
• App-based polls to actively engage participants that also estimate a meeting’s participation levels

Another popular technology solution is Poly Headsets. These headsets are designed to be durable and are good for use in the office or at home. They offer a noise-cancelling feature and can be effective at suppressing ambient noise and feedback. Some benefits of using a Poly Headset include:

• Clearer communication
• Compatibility with other communication platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, GoTo, and others
• Increased productivity as participants are not required to hold anything and will be free to work with both hands

A reputable AV integrator will offer a variety of audio-visual technologies, making them a one stop shop for schools and businesses looking for a variety of solutions that enable them to better connect with others, whether it is in an in-person, virtual, or hybrid environment.

Don’t let annoying feedback suppression hold your organization back from achieving its mission. Make audio feedback a thing of the past with the help of an experienced AV integrator that can provide the best feedback suppression options.