I Am Sure You Have Already Noticed a New Piece of Technology in Your Room

Hello Staff,

I am sure you have already noticed a new piece of technology in your room.

The four of us (myself, David H, Benny, and maintenance chipped in Jason) spent the break installing 51 units across the two campuses. To break that down a bit… that’s 51 amplifiers, 102 speakers, 153 brackets, 1020 screws, and just a few feet short of a whole mile of wire! If you see any of my guys or Jason please throw them a ‘thanks’, they really went above and beyond to get this done in such a short amount of time. We were under a pretty tight schedule so if we didn’t get your room put back exactly the way it was I apologize for that.

The school board recently approved a capital project that would put a classroom amplification system in most classrooms at both elementary schools.

The Classroom Amplification System chosen was the FrontRow “Lasso”. The FrontRow Lasso lets students throughout the classroom hear without undue effort – leaving them mentally more ready and able to learn. Numerous studies have reported tremendous benefits from FrontRow implementations, including greater student achievement, easier classroom management, and improved teacher energy.

Each system comes with 2 speakers that are mounted in your classroom, an amplifier mounted on a shelf, and a teacher microphone.

The microphones transmit via Infrared technology, and not by radio frequency. This basically means the microphone sends out pulses of light that bounce off surfaces in your room until they hit the receivers that are built into the speakers. It also means there is a slight chance you may have a dead spot or two in your room where the microphone won’t work. If you do have one, most likely it will be a spot that you usually don’t frequent much, or we can make minor adjustments to the receivers to clear up the area.

Also available are student microphones for checkout from the library. Each classroom can have one teacher microphone and one student microphone, or two teacher microphones if they are set to different channels.

When two teacher microphones are used in the same classroom one will need to be on channel A while the other is on channel B. Student microphones only work on channel B. Teacher microphones are set to channel A by default.

Most audio producing equipment in your room can also be attached through this system, including your teacher PC, DVD, VCR, and even an iPod or some other personal device that has a headphone jack. The iPod cables will be available from the library later this week, just ask.

I had to order cables to attach teacher PC’s to the system, they will be installed later this week. If your DVD/VCR was already close to where the amplifier was installed we went ahead and hooked it up for you. If you do have a DVD/VCR that you would like to hook up to the system please move it close to the amplifier and call or email the helpdesk for help. If your DVD/VCR is still hooked up to your TV I encourage you to move it closer to the projector connections and the sound system, again if you need help email the helpdesk.

Attached is a quick start guide I put together to help you get started. I also posted this guide and several other documents and videos on the districts SharePoint site, just browse to www.sultan.k12.wa.us click departments on the left, click on Technology, then look for the link to Classroom Amplification.

Thanks, and remember if you have any questions please call the helpdesk at 9820 x123 or send an email to

Dave Moon