Jabra announced its partnership with the school district in Sarasota County, Florida to equip thousands of classrooms with solutions to enable remote learning. In response to the pandemic, Sarasota County Schools adopted a concurrent teaching model where some students are present in classrooms, while some are taking classes online from home. Teachers and IT teams recognized a need for technology that enabled them to bring the classroom online.
As a result, Sarasota County Schools installed Jabra PanaCast cameras and Speak 510 speakerphones in 2,500 classrooms to keep students at home engaged and provide a more immersive remote learning experience.
“When all students cannot be in the classroom at once, proper audio and video quality is critical to maintaining connections in a virtual learning environment,” said Aurangzeb Khan, Senior Vice President at Jabra. “At Jabra, we are dedicated to providing the technology solutions that school systems need to allow them to deliver the best possible experience for the evolving needs of students and teachers. The Jabra PanaCast and Jabra Speak are the connection between what is happening in the school classroom and the at-home classroom.”
Jabra PanaCast is the world’s first Panoramic-4K plug-and-play video solution, originally designed to bring meetings to life with high-definition video. Jabra PanaCast offers a full 180-degree view, automatically including everyone in the conversation – even if they are more spread out in the room to maintain social distancing. With a view of the entire classroom, students at home are able to see the teacher’s instructional environment so they do not miss out on nonverbal cues and can feel like they are a part of the classroom. And for lessons that require more in-depth instruction, the Intelligent Zoom feature can automatically adjust the frame to focus only on the teacher, or whoever is talking at the time.
Jabra’s Speak 510 speakerphones offer superb audio quality and connect wirelessly via Bluetooth or USB, allowing students to hear everything that is going on in the classroom. Together, Jabra PanaCast and Speak 510 offer an unrivaled combination of crystal-clear audio and video to bring remote and in-person students closer together for an immersive, engaging remote learning experience.
“We’re excited for what this technology means for teachers, and how it allows them to seamlessly, and more meaningfully connect with remote students,” said Joe Binswanger, Director of Information Technology at Sarasota County Schools.
By integrating Jabra’s intelligently designed audio and video solutions into classrooms throughout the district, Sarasota County Schools was able to provide a singular solution that met the needs of all classrooms, teachers and students, from kindergarten classes to high-school-level science courses. The plug-and-play integration between the Jabra PanaCast and Speak 510 instantly connects with whatever video conferencing platform the teacher is using, allowing them to utilize the platform that best fits the needs of their students and curriculum. This flexibility is key, especially in a large district with diverse needs.
“We don’t want to create an environment where teachers spend valuable instructional time troubleshooting technology,” said Todd Alexander, Manager of School Support Services and Information Technology at Sarasota County Schools. “Jabra solutions are easy to navigate and are incredibly user friendly. The nice thing about technology is when it just works. This has been the case with Jabra solutions, they just work.”
