Panasonic Classroom Safety

Panasonic’s IR Audio System for classrooms is best in class. It’s a feature packed audio system for the classroom that insures that every student can hear the teacher clearly.

What sits at the center of the system though, is actually around the teachers neck.

A lightweight remote control of sorts is integrated with a microphone that amplify’s the teachers voice throughout the classroom. The device also allows the teacher to control the sound and volume from a touch of a button.

The device has been rated best in class and is deployed at schools across the country. Teacher’s love the crisp clear audio which reduces teacher vocal strain and fatigue and allows teachers to speak with natural inflections from anywhere in the room, and at the same time makes sure that every student hears them.

Being able to hear the teacher no matter what means that students can pay better attention and it’s improving student performance and confidence.

As important, or perhaps even more important than the audio clarity that the Panasonic IR Audio System microphone gives to teachers is the safety and piece of mind.

Sitting at the bottom of the microphone device is a function button. The function button can be used for a variety of things but when integrated with the SAFE system it could literally be used to save lives, most importantly the lives of students and teachers.

The SAFE system is a third party system that integrates various safety components to an emergency call box that can be located in the main office, or a security office. This system is almost like the brain system for a home alarm.

When a school has a SAFE system and the teacher hits the function button an alert is sent to the system. That alert is then sent to the appropriate administrators and can be routed to the police. When combined with things like a Panasonic 360 camera the video from the room where the panic call is coming from can be displayed on a screen in the office and routed to the authorities.

Panasonic carries a dome style 3600 camera with an “eye lid”. Typically when the teacher is teaching during the school day that “eye lid” is closed for privacy. It can be opened for monitoring or at the end of the school day for security purposes. But in a typical school day when class is in session, if that eye lid is closed, an activation from the SAFE system can open it and start streaming the audio and video from the room. The “eye lid” can also signal back to the teacher, inconspicuously to alert the teacher that the proper administrators or authorities have been alerted to their signal.

We wish we lived in a world with no school shootings but in a press conference Panasonic held at ISTE 2014 on Sunday morning they spoke about the incident in 2010 when a Wisconsin high school student held his class hostage. In that particular case the shooter died from a self inflicted gunshot wound. Obviously a system like this one from Panasonic could have aided in any of the school shootings in the last two decades but this one in particular sticks out.

The student came into class unarmed. After the class began watching a movie he went to the bathroom, then to his locker and returned to the classroom with two guns and ammunition. During the movie the student shot the projector and took the students hostage.

For some reason no one realized until two hours later when students were missing from home and no one had heard anything from any students in that class, did the Principal realize there was trouble. He went into the room with a key and was told at gunpoint to go away. That’s when he was able to notify authorities, who after a six hour standoff, stormed the room.

The SAFE system integrated with the Panasonic IR audio system could have alerted the administration and authorities immediately. In situations like these teachers can’t go to a phone, a walkie talkie or a call button to notify anyone.

Panasonic has been in the security and surveillance business for decades. They are the number one supplier of security cameras in the world.

You can find out more about the Panasonic IR Audio System here at panasonic.com