Cascadia is a networked instructional audio platform that effortlessly projects the teacher’s voice within the classroom while empowering teachers to call for help and communicate outside the classroom directly from their lanyard microphone. It delivers all the benefits of instructional audio. Integrating with existing life-safety and building communication systems, Cascadia can initiate mobile, silent emergency alerts and make two-way calls to the office from anywhere in the building. Cascadia connects to a school’s network, providing centralized monitoring and control, along with key integrations to critical building-wide communications.

Primary website’s URL:

https://lightspeed-tek.com/products/cascadia/

Problem solved:

Children spend 75% of their day in listening activities, so it is crucial for the teacher’s voice to be clearly heard and understood by all students. Instructional audio overcomes the many barriers to an equitable listening environment, including distance, ambient noise and vocal strain, by providing low-volume, highly intelligible sound throughout a classroom.

The need for teachers to communicate with resources outside of the classroom continues to grow, whether in an emergency or simply when help is needed. With Cascadia, schools can now meet this need by providing teachers with a communication tool that gives teachers peace of mind that they can access help all from the touch of a button on their microphone.

Grade/age range:

K-12 grades

Research:

Decades of research have underscored the crucial link between being able to hear clearly and learning. These studies have identified consistent and evidenced-based benefits of using instructional audio systems to distribute sound equally throughout a learning environment. Some key highlights:

• 15% increase on the Stanford Achievement test
• 30% higher ELL word recognition
• 92% fewer teacher redirections
• 43% decrease in K-6 special education referrals.

Pricing model:

Cascadia is a one-time per unit price, with a 5-year warranty on all systems. There are no reoccurring or subscription fees to utilize the web console.

Are there additional services needed:

To provide the mobile alert function and two-way calling, Cascadia needs to integrate with a school or district’s paging and intercom system and phone system.

What makes Cascadia unique?

Cascadia is the only instructional audio platform that provides voice amplification within the classroom and expanded communication capabilities such as mobile alert notifications and two-way SIP calls both inside and outside the classroom, all from the teacher’s microphone.

Characteristics:

Cascadia connects to a school’s network, providing centralized monitoring and control, along with key integrations to critical building-wide communications. The Cascadia platform provides:

• Timely alerts from anywhere in the building
• Communication to the office with two-way calling
• Real-time teacher location during an active alert
• Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) to leverage network infrastructure
• Clear, low volume, high intelligibility of the teacher’s voice
• Integration with classroom multimedia
• Student sharing with Sharemike

Here’s what users are saying:

“Cascadia has made it much easier to support our teachers by having one system for both classroom audio and additional security and call features. Being able to integrate with my existing paging, intercom and phone systems and have it all be on our network helps my team, but more importantly, it makes it easier for the teachers since the microphone is always with them.”

--Jason Gale, Technology Director, Hart Public Schools – Hart, Michigan