Background
Nova Education Trust is a cross-phase Multi-Academy Trust in the United Kingdom with 15 schools, more than 10,200 pupils and 1,200 staff. Tech stack implementations look slightly different at each school, but most classrooms are equipped with either Promethean Boards or TVs. Students share laptops or Chromebooks from trolleys, while several classrooms have desktop computer implementations.
Challenges
Digital signage
With varied technology installed across 15 schools, Nova lacked a functioning, comprehensive digital signage solution. Existing screens and TVs for messaging were difficult to access, use and maintain, which meant that IT often became a bottleneck as staff members were the only viable users of the system. On some screens, communications staff relied on USB sticks to carry their messages, causing problems as the content went out of date quickly, USB ports were difficult to reach, resulting in even more of a nuisance. Still other display screens had mini-PCs on them, which IT could access remotely to post updates. This posed network security challenges, as well as delays for the staff and teachers who needed to post messages with a more frequent cadence. In short, valuable budget was spent on a solution that was either too difficult to use effectively or not being used at all, all while taxing the IT team’s resources.
Improving school communication and screen sharing
As the Director of IT and Data Services, Michael Sanderson sought a more user-friendly, easy to implement and maintain digital signage solution to improve communications across schools within the Trust. Secondarily, Sanderson and his team were interested in expanding and improving screen sharing solutions inside the classroom, particularly for those without an interactive flat panel.
Solution
Digital signage
Sanderson and his team selected six schools for the initial rollout of Vivi’s digital signage solution, relying on Vivi’s support structure for a successful implementation, which included advice from their dedicated Sales Engineer, in-person training and online help. Because they intentionally configured the product for a Trust setting (with multiple schools/buildings), their rollout is easily replicable, making it seamless to add more schools in the future.
“We’ve had some really good in-person training and online help to get our Trust configuration right so it’s easily repeatable. Getting it right from the outset is quite important; if you get it wrong, you can accidentally create a lot of extra work for your team. That help and support from Vivi right at the start is key to making a scalable solution,” emphasised Sanderson.
A “train-the-trainer” approach
Vivi trained the Nova IT Techs, who in turn trained any users of the system, whether support staff or teachers, who need to publish digital content at their schools. Rather than learning a new proprietary system, these users are simply working with their existing content, whether Google or Microsoft PowerPoint slides, and pointing the Vivi system to that content, which they already know how to create, update and edit for more dynamic messaging. These users quickly became comfortable with publishing and scheduling their communications on their own in the easy-to-use Vivi tool, bypassing the need for IT intervention.
Easy-to-use yet secure and sophisticated
With a thoughtfully planned out implementation, Nova configured their system with Groups to allow their users to target different audiences with meaningful messaging, whether that’s visiting parents and families, or students. IT easily delegates permissions such that each user only has access to their particular content and schedule (I.e., Sports, Drama, Admin messaging, etc.).
“A big part of what I was trying to solve and what Vivi solved for us, was to eliminate bottlenecks in digital signage. What we love about this platform, different to any other solution we’ve seen, is how easy it is to delegate permissions. Our users have access to update their content and schedules without breaking the system. Everybody has access to what they need and nothing they don’t,” said Sanderson.
Next up: confidence to trial Vivi’s screen share technology
With happy digital signage users at six schools and an IT staff freed up from tedious system support and bottlenecks, Nova will next take advantage of Vivi’s evaluation program to test its interactive screen sharing in the classrooms at Birklands Primary School where the school has opted for TVs instead of expensive Promethean boards. This rollout, pairing Vivi with the classroom TV displays, will make use of Chromebook trolleys for classroom engagement and interactivity among students and teachers.
Outcomes
Eliminating bottlenecks and empowering users
Vivi’s easy-to-use digital signage solution empowered users to create and deploy their messaging once they were trained by IT Staff. No longer reliant on IT or USB drives to post and fix their updates, school communications are now timely, relevant, and reliable, integrating seamlessly with their existing content creation tools. With proper system permissions and security in place, both the IT team and the various users trust that their particular content won’t be altered “accidentally.”
Boost culture and community
Beyond important logistical announcements and day-to-day business, the more dynamic digital signage allows the staff to carry out their mission more effectively by reinforcing the Nova Education Trust’s cultural values. Messages that students and parents read in newsletters and emails, or hear in the classroom at school events are visually displayed on screens as they move about the school, always in the periphery. This enhanced communication during evening events has increased parental engagement with the school community. Various departments use the signage to celebrate student achievements, post awards and showcase student artwork. These visual displays create a sense of excitement among the students, not only for their own achievements, but to appreciate the achievements of their friends and peers.
Lighten IT workload… and budget!
With happy and able digital signage users across schools, IT is no longer a bottleneck to achieve school communications goals. They can easily replicate the solution at more of the trust’s fifteen schools without taxing their team’s resources.
Thanks to Vivi’s option to trial the technology on a small scale before a larger rollout, along with solid support and training, Nova looks forward to enhancing screen sharing in the classrooms, untethering teachers from the front of the classroom and empowering them to personalise learning for students with features like screen grabs, annotations, and note-taking. By choosing TVs and Chromebook trolleys for this trial, they have halved the budget required to accomplish this goal.
