Poor classroom acoustics are impairing students' hearing and their ability to learn. However, technology has come up with a solution: tools that focus voices in a way that minimizes intrusive ambient noise and gets to the intended receiver--not merely amplifying the sound, but also clarifying and directing it. One provider of classroom audio technology is Audio Enhancement, which has a manufacturing relationship with Panasonic. Using an Audio Enhancement system, teachers speak into a microphone, and speakers transmit the voice throughout the classroom. Teachers can also hook up the system to computers, DVD players, VCRs, interactive whiteboards, and just about any other classroom tool. They can capture audio and put it on the Internet. They can even tie everything into the school's public address system. A study released this past March, "Improving the Classroom Environment: Classroom Amplification Systems," done by Miami-Dade County Public Schools, spells out the general benefits of audio systems to students and teachers, namely, increases in student attention, participation, productivity, comprehension, and on-task behaviors, and a decrease in discipline problems. The report also alludes to additional studies of the health benefits for teachers in sound-amplified classroms, one that found a reduction in teacher sick days because of voice, jaw, or throat problems, and another that reported a 25 percent decrease in teacher absenteeism.