Executive Summary

German Swiss International School (GSIS) in Hong Kong is a vibrant, dual-stream institution with approximately 1,300 students and supported by 240 dedicated staff across their two campuses. What sets GSIS apart is its unique educational model: the school offers both the German International Stream — following the German curriculum — and the English International Stream, which leads to the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma. 

Roughly one-third of students are enrolled in the German stream, while two-thirds follow the IB programme. This dual approach presents exciting opportunities and challenges, particularly when it comes to fostering technological integration and collaboration across both streams. 

Background 

At GSIS, Keith Rutherford, Director of Technology, was tasked with modernising the school’s technological infrastructure and enabling new learning technologies. As part of this transformation, GSIS has implemented Vivi, a decision that has significantly improved teaching and engagement across the school’s two campuses. 

When Rutherford joined GSIS, one of his top priorities was to ensure the school had a robust ICT Asset Management Plan to ensure the ICT assets are properly utilised and kept up-to-date.  

“A key area of focus here is to ensure we are using modern technology to improve our school.”  

This need for modernisation extended beyond infrastructure. The school also wanted a more efficient, secure, and consistent way for teachers and students to share content in classrooms.  

After evaluating a number of options, GSIS chose Vivi. 

Solution 

At the heart of GSIS’s positive experience with Vivi is the company’s deep understanding of the education sector.  

“It’s not just a screen mirroring or a messaging system — it’s actually designed for schools,” Rutherford said. “That understanding of how schools work, how classrooms work, how teachers work — that’s a really important component that makes a difference to us.” 

He continued, “It was part of the selection — that Vivi is a school-focused, school-developed solution. It’s not a presentation solution that’s been adapted to fit into schools.” 

Outcomes 

A consistent and seamless experience for teachers and students 

The deployment of Vivi has brought simplicity and flexibility to classroom technology use at GSIS.  

“We wanted something easy to use,” Rutherford said. “What I love most about it is the ease of installation, the ease of configuration, and the way we can set it up to make it as simple as possible for teachers to find the room they’re in, connect, start teaching.” 

Vivi has also made it easier for students to share their work, with appropriate safeguards. 

 “The students being able to safely present — and I say safely in terms of the teacher being able to quickly check before it goes up on the big screen — that’s a really important thing for us,” Keith added. 

Creating a consistent classroom experience by adding Vivi to every classroom has also been a big win for the school. “For us, we try to be as consistent as possible in all of our classrooms because one lesson might have a German class and the next lesson might have an English class, so we’ve got to make sure it is easy for staff to walk in, connect and start teaching. 

 We’ve got all the teachers able to go into any room and be able to connect as quickly as possible, get the lesson going, and be focused on their students.” 

Greater mobility in a ‘bring-your-own-device’ classroom 

The school issues teachers with MacBooks, whilst the senior school operates a ‘bring-your-own-device’ (BYOD) system for students. This means in any given classroom, you can have MacBooks, Chromebooks, Microsoft-based devices all trying to operate in the same environment.  

Vivi’s device-agnostic nature has allowed GSIS classrooms to seamlessly support an array of devices and operating systems, providing both students and teachers the ability to present their work without the need for HDMI cables. 

And not being linked to an HDMI cable when presenting has meant teachers have become increasingly mobile – moving around the room and supporting students, instead of being tethered to the front of the classroom with their laptops. 

What’s next: empowering communications and emergency messaging 

With Vivi fully embedded in classrooms, GSIS is now looking to expand its use of Vivi for digital signage and emergency messaging. 

Currently, updates to digital signage are managed through a PowerPoint presentation distributed via the IT office — a process Rutherford wants to streamline. “What I want is for our comms team to easily manage the displays through Vivi,” he said. “I want them to have full access. As easy as possible for them to update, to take be in full control of the messaging.” 

This real-time flexibility is especially important in a dynamic school environment.  

“We’ve got sporting teams playing in strong competitions.  “If they win, it would be great if our comms team could immediately push that messaging out to everyone ” which Vivi’s Digital Signage set-up would be able to facilitate. 

Utilising Vivi’s Emergency Alerts is also a top priority for the school moving forward to further enhance their existing systems.  

With our building structures, we’re a complicated campus. The old speaker system just isn’t going to cut it anymore. So that ability to put out a message via a mobile phone — lockdown, evacuation, all clear — and get that message to every single Vivi screen, that’s going to be an important step for us.”