Middlebury Community Schools serves three townships in northeastern Elkhart County, Indiana, covering 100 square miles.
Jeremy Miller, CETL (Director of Technology) for Middlebury Community Schools shares about the challenges their district was facing and how the Empower Learning team was able to support the solutions.
Case study: District Wide Interactive Board Benefits
Challenge: Our school system was facing a challenge with the aging interactive boards that we had at the time. The boards were functioning well overall, but they were almost 12 years old and it was getting very difficult to find replacement parts for them. We also had different models of interactive boards at almost every building. This made it so that our building technicians had to know the operation of each style so they could help troubleshoot issues with teachers.
Solution: The solution that we came up with was a refresh of all of our interactive panels. We used general obligation bond money and purchased replacement boards for every classroom in every building. This was over 300 boards total.
Benefits: This solution allowed us to have exactly the same model everywhere in our school district. This saved us time in troubleshooting, time in training staff, and made it easier for users to operate the panels because they were consistent across each classroom.
School Details: Middlebury Community Schools serves three townships in northeastern Elkhart County, Indiana, covering 100 square miles. Quality housing developments and a thriving manufacturing economy have been major factors in the steady growth of the district over the past decades. The school corporation provides a unique environment with a blend of traditional values and progressive education. We are conveniently close to major highways, railways and airports, where residents can have access to nearby urban centers of culture, entertainment and higher education. The system has seven schools. There are 4 elementary schools (grades K-3); an intermediate school (grades 4-5); a middle school (grades 6-8) and a high school (grades 9-12) serving 4,500 students.
Interactive Solutions: We chose Promethean interactive panels to solve our problem. These boards came highly recommended by other schools and had been used in our district previously. These boards were very well received by our staff members, as they now only had an interactive display rather than a board and projector. These also had much better speakers than were in classrooms prior to the installation. Staff also liked the fact that there was a web browser built into the boards as well as the fact that they could hook up additional devices for use.
Student Engagement: Student engagement has definitely increased. Students are able to see the provided instruction on a clear and crisp 4K display. The speakers also are loud enough for students to hear all across the classroom. This was an issue before we refreshed the boards. Lastly, the new Promethean boards allowed for students to pair their chromebook with the Promethean board so that they could easily show information to their classmates.
Additional Comments: Empower Learning has done a great job for our school system. The communication with them is top-notch, they are responsive to issues, and are very considerate during installations. The Promethean company is also one that we have found to be solid for long term solutions. We have used their boards in the past and have found that they consistently perform well every day. I would also mention that Jeff Tucker is a wonderful rep for Empower Learning and Promethean. He is easy to work with and communicates very well. Dave Tutton has also been wonderful to work with!
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About Us
Empower Learning's focus is to provide a complete end to end integration of Interactive classrooms and provide ongoing maintenance. It is our goal to have 100% completely satisfied customers. And to provide them excellent service by providing every aspect of customer support in the form of selling, installation, warranty service and professional development.