I've just discovered that schools in our area are being urged to install classroom amplification (wireless mikes, a la a rock show) in _all_ their classrooms, so that all teachers would be miked and amplified. It's being merchandised as a guaranteed test-score-raiser. At a cost of only about $1000 a classrooom the school's performance on district achievement tests will stay up with the increased scores from the other schools who've already installed the system. I'd never heard of this before. I was, to put it mildly, flabbergasted to think that a model of education which focuses pretty much on whether students can hear, really clearly, just what they're told is being merchandised even as far from the cutting edge as New Brunswick. And for primary classrooms, which I thought might be a final bastion of resistance to the "teaching is telling" doctrine. I wasn't quite so astonished to discover that there's money to be made in installing these systems. Check "classroom amplification" and "test scores" in Google. I've been looking for the "studies" the companies merchandising this keep alluding to, and not having much luck; it occurs to me that inkshedders might be able to give me some leads. We've been sold a lot of technological nostrums for classrooms in the last few decades, as Larry Cuban regularly points out, but on balance this is about as alarming as any I've seen. I used to have a sign on my office door: "I know I taught it because I heard myself say it." I think I'll put it back up, adding, "and I know they heard it because it was amplified." -- RussSt. Thomas University http://www.StThomasU.ca/~hunt/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to [log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties, write to Russ Hunt at [log in to unmask] For the list archives and information about the organization, its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-