Like most first-grade teachers, Shannon Smith at St. Michael Elementary School in Albertville, Minn., never lacks for tasks to keep her busy in the classroom. Wrangling eager students, planning appropriate lessons, and grading assignments are just a few of her daily activities, and with many other "to dos" on her agenda there never seems to be enough time in the school day to get everything accomplished. 

While the promise of classroom technology offers great advantages, for many teachers it often seems like more of an inconvenience than a resource. Using technology to shape lesson plans is important to Smith, but the time it takes to manage the different tools occasionally becomes a challenge. After all, it's difficult enough to hold the attention of two dozen six-year-olds and keep the lesson plan on schedule, much less figure out how to toggle from one media input to another or adjust the volume.

Located 30 miles northwest of Minneapolis, the 5,000-student St. Michael-Albertville (STMA) School District, where Smith teaches, is not unlike school districts nationwide--eager to bring instructional technology into the classroom, but at the same time somewhat intimidated by the prospect.

Though many districts like STMA have projectors, interactive whiteboards, and sound amplification systems, these tools don't always realize their full potential, partly because the products were not designed to work as an integrated system. As a result, teachers' usage of instructional technology tools is compromised. 

At STMA, the district's technology team was quick to recognize that success required eliminating the disconnect between the technology and teachers like Smith. With a $2 million classroom technology project underway across the district's eight facilities and 400 classrooms, STMA wouldn't be measuring success by what technology they've installed, but rather by how teachers are using the technology in their daily lessons.

"Teachers and tech directors need to concentrate on the learning environment, not the myriad of potential technical issues," said Wayne Hoistad, STMA's director of technology. "Technology should be an extension of the teacher and success should be measured by the teacher's ability to seamlessly integrate technology into the lessons. If it is an inconvenience, then the return on investment isn't there. It's one thing to have the tools, but they won't do much good if they're not connected and easy to integrate and use in the classroom."

Taking into account teachers' needs and comfort level, Hoistad and his team developed a technology plan around two principles: the solution had to be easy for teachers to use; and it had to provide the power to harness all of the technology tools available in a seamless manner.

With those goals in mind, STMA determined that a critical factor would be bringing together the various technology elements--from interactive whiteboards to microphones, projectors and computers--through a common control and management platform.