Students this year are experiencing a new classroom setting that is getting them excited about learning. The new Cisco classroom, in the social studies wing of the school, provides students with an exciting new way to learn. These new classrooms are in public high schools throughout Anoka-Hennepin school district.

The futuristic learning style is unusual from the classes at Blaine. Ms. Birkmeier, one of the teachers involved gave her take on the new learning style and said that any class materials are distributed electronically and that all students and teachers have to be sitting down. And what about homework? Any assignments are turned in electronically.

Dan Hoff, a student in the class, explained that during the creation of the rooms they wanted them to be uniform and unbounded. After all of the seating arrangements were implemented, Blaine had to change their chairs so they were the same as the chairs in Champlin Park, Coon Rapids, Anoka, and Andover.

Not only are students enrolled in classes getting to use the Cisco classroom, so are those involved in extracurricular. The Blaine Debate team recently got an inside view of the room. While Blaine debated Champlin Park, Andover watched the debate take place. The virtual classroom concept is proving versatile.

Cisco Systems markets the idea as a flexible, cost-effective way to create a comprehensive distance learning solution. The classrooms improve instructional and scheduling flexibility for the teachers. One teacher can teach the class of two schools, although the class sizes are generally smaller then class sizes in the district.

Anoka- Hennepin received the federal Enhancing Education Through Technology grant in 2009, which provided them with enough money to select the Cisco WebEx solutions. The Cisco classrooms also help out the districts technology department. The district is now able to troubleshoot technology issues more efficiently.