Randolph Unplugged: Ditched the Dongles. Doubled Capacity. Empowered Every Classroom.

Executive Summary 

Randolph Township Schools did not set out to replace their AV infrastructure.  

They started with a signage problem. Their existing system was not meeting the need, and they brought in roughly 20 Vivi units to solve it. Then they plugged one in and saw everything it could do. 

What followed was a full EdTech tool consolidation.

Wireless screen sharing replaced dongles and physical cables across all 6 buildings. Multi-display classroom setups began displacing IFP purchases. A single platform now handles signage, screen sharing, guest access, and display management district-wide. Crisis response and live broadcasting will roll out this fall.  

The district serves 4,300 students. Every instructional building runs on Vivi. No new infrastructure required.

At Randolph Township Schools, Vivi delivers a campus operating system that powers: 

• Measurable classroom impact  
• Unified campus communications 
• Stronger crisis response
  
• Real budget protection with higher value upside 

Instructional Impact & Access 

Better value does not mean fewer capabilities. Randolph’s teachers move freely, share to any screen without a cable, and give students their own permissions on the display. The more they use it, the more they do with it. 

Instructional impact amplified through mobility.

“You have that student who’s just not engaged, the lesson isn’t doing it for them,they’rekind of zoning out. When the teacher’s at the front of the room, they might not be able to be present for that student. But with Vivi, I can go mobile, teach right next to that student, or even bring them in and say, ‘What do you think?’ Give them the ability to engage right there.” ~ Peter Emmel, Director of Technology 

Smarter ways to meet accessibility needs.

In co-taught elementary classrooms, typically one general ed and one special ed teacher working with the same group, the single-display problem was a daily negotiation over whose lesson plan got the screen. 

“When the first elementary principal reached out asking if they could put a second display in a classroom, and they gave the reasoning, it was just — whoa. Yeah, that’s actually really smart usage of the technology. In our co-taught classrooms, there’s usually a general ed and special ed teacher together. It was always a question of whose lesson plan gets the screen. And sometimes that’s just not practical, because both lesson plans need technology. Maybe they’re both teaching from the same math textbook, but one group needs more time on a concept while the other is ready to move ahead. Now they don’t have to flip a coin over who gets the display. Both teachers have a screen with a display hooked up to Vivi. Both groups get what they need at the same time.” 

Student sharing, safely.

“Student sharing was a major point of contention before Vivi. Teachers just weren’t sure how to make it work, do students use my computer? Do I disconnect and reconnect? Vivi provides the ability for teachers to keep control while giving students their own permission to share wirelessly, it’s opened up the door for more student sharing. It’s been very positive.” 

A Unified Campus: One platform across every screen 

Randolph used to solve signage, screen sharing, and communications with separate tools. Now, Vivi runs across every screen and device the district, with no new infrastructure required. 

One unified platform across 6 buildings means one system to learn, manage, and support. Less overhead. More consistency. No room-by-room troubleshooting.

Vivi Central puts management in one place.

“Firmware updating, easy. Mass changing features and settings, very helpful. My technicians can now work directly with Vivi support via Vivi Central.” 

One system. Every building. Everyone knows what to do.

“When you see the Vivi splash screen and the four-digit code, people know exactly what to do. I open Vivi, I connect. That’s it. 

Guests come in, they’re added to our guest network, given a guest code to Vivi so they can display as well. It’s a Mac, it’s a Chromebook, it’s a PC, fill in the blank. There are so many different devices with different connection needs. Vivi solved those issues.” 

Digital signage that yields measurable student outcomes.

“A student walking down the hall is going to look at whatever you put on the screen. It’s why you have billboards on roadways and digital signage in airports — you’ve got a captive audience.  Morning announcements are great, but not every student’s listening. Email is okay, but not everyone keeps up. With signage, a student’s just walking down the hall and — oh, that’s right, that club sign-up’s today.  We’ve seen some positive changes to students being on time to class because the high school runs countdown timers on the hallway displays.” 

Active crisis response capabilities: in progress.

“Of all the ones, I’m most excited about the fire alerts. You know who looks at the exit plan posted by the door? Nobody. But if a fire alarm really goes off, now, Vivi puts it right on the screen, it’s literally telling you where to go, how to get out of the building. For individuals with hearing impairments, it’s immediately clear: fire, exit, here’s how I get out.” 

Budget protection with high value upside 

The most important budget decision at Randolph was a purchase they stopped making. Instead of fixed unit IFPs, Vivi proved to meet the real needs of today’s classrooms, at a lower cost. That math, and the classroom impact that follows, is now driving decisions across all 6 buildings. 

Two displays and two Vivis instead of one IFP.

“With touchscreen devices coming out your eyeballs, an IFP in the front of the room seems less valuable than having two different displays to differentiate learning and make the classroom more modular than ever before. 

As we see the value of pairing Vivi with multi-display rooms, all of our instructional supervisors are asking the question: do we really need an IFP?” 

That calculation is now playing out across every buildings and departments, most recently art and science. 

“Just a couple years ago, our science teachers were like, ‘We must have an IFP. We will not be able to teach science without it.’ And now, a lot of our science teachers, it’s not even a conversation. They’d much rather have a room with multiple displays and Vivi than a room with an IFP.” 

Less than the cost of a classroom desktop refresh.

“There is obviously an annual cost for Vivi, but it was less than what it would take to replace a classroom desktop every 4 to 5 years, so considerably less.” 

Imagining a world without Vivi

“The immediate gap would be the inability to connect to any of our projectors or displays, we’ve completely done away with any physical cables. Gone. There’s no means of connecting to those devices. The signage, the inability to communicate with students as they move through the hallway, would be detrimental, especially at our high school. Losing that access to students would be big. And the emergency alerts, the video messaging, those are things we would never be able to achieve without Vivi. If Vivi went away, it would be painful.” 

What’s Next

Vivi’s crisis response features, with visual emergency alerts begins rolling out in this fall. The high school’s TV production program has requested access to livestream morning announcements via Vivi, giving students hands-on broadcast experience while reaching every classroom screen simultaneously. 

“From my health and PE teachers all the way up to my Board of Education, everyone is using Vivi with very minimal need for tech support, if any. The value speaks for itself.”