As the fifth largest school district in Mississippi, the Madison County School District took on a tremendous undertaking when administrators launched the 1:M One To Many Devices program during the summer of 2014. In time for the 2014-2015 academic year, the 1:M program was launched to create a student-centered learning environment. As part of this initiative, each student in grades 9-12 was provided with a personal laptop to use in school and at home, and schools in the county were outfitted with a range of integrated technologies to round out the offerings.
Among the technologies included were projectors from Casio America, Inc.Casio LampFree® projectors, including the Signature and Ultra Short Throw models, were installed in over 300 high school classrooms throughout the Madison County Schools system. The district also plans to purchase an additional 100 Casio projectors for its remaining classrooms by phasing out existing units as needed over the next one to two years.
“For this project we decided to shy away from the typical whiteboards that are found in many classrooms today and instead focus on bringing together a suite of technological upgrades to make the learning experience significantly more student-generated,” said Gavin Guynes, Director of Information Technology, Madison County School District. “For our classroom size, it was key that the projectors could be mounted in such a way that an instructor could remain at the front of the classroom without blocking the projector’s display. Casio’s Ultra Short Throw projectors were just the solution for this purpose and met all our needs within the classroom, without hurting our bottom line.”
Casio projectors provide users with a 20,000 hour estimated lifespan, and eliminate the need for expensive projection lamps that often need replacement and can cost almost as much as the original projector unit over one year. The units are also mercury-free, eliminating concerns for the proper disposal of used lamps and mercury pollution.
“When we learned about Casio’s products and experienced the projectors in action first-hand, we were blown away by the technology and the large amount of resources we would be saving over the projectors’ lifespan,” added Guynes. “Our 1:M program is filled with several different technologies that all come together to provide a robust educational experience for our more than 13,000 students. The various components needed to be highly coordinated and Casio’s LampFree® line of projectors were an integral part of bringing our 1:M vision to life.”
