Customer Experience

Digital signage unites teachers and students at Washington high school

A rural Washington state high school optimizes communications and engagement in challenging hybrid education model.

Image courtesy of Carousel Digital Signage.

June 1, 2021

The staff and faculty at Grandview High School in Grandview, Washington, are able to deliver targeted messages to students on and off campus, thanks to the Carousel Cloud digital signage network in combination with Carousel Express Players.

The original plan was to deploy a digital signage solution that enabled the distribution of targeted messaging to specific grades, classrooms and zones, according to Brad Charvet, a teacher who also serves as the school's AV lead. For example, athletes would have access to team news and updates throughout the athletic department, and cafeteria screens would display that day's lunch menu and school news. Because Grandview High has a considerable population of students for which English is a second language, Charvert was also seeking a solution that facilitated the distribution of pertinent information in Spanish.

The deployment was part of a larger project: Grandview High's move to a larger building, a project that had been scheduled well before the arrival of COVID-19. The pandemic hit as students and faculty were settling into their new school, forcing everyone to work and learn from home. The school has reopened since, welcoming back approximately 600 students on campus, with another 400 continuing to follow classes remotely.

"Digital signage became a critical communications tool for us as we transitioned back to school," Charvet said in a press release about the deployment. "We needed to deliver information on health and safety rules to the students, staff, and parents that would be in the building. One example is in our stairwells, where displays direct students and visitors how and where to circulate to respect distancing measures."

The school's Carousel Cloud digital signage network, integrated with BrightSign media players, delivers content to 23 video displays positioned throughout the school. Charvet noted the convenience of a cloud-based system: "If I'm working from home — or wherever I'm at — I can log in and change the content," he said. "There are no limitations, and we don't have to manage it."

The Carousel Express Players extend digital signage messaging beyond location-based end points, allowing teachers to deliver more targeted content to all their students regardless of where they are learning in the classroom or from home. The software-defined players are deployed alongside Carousel Cloud on the school's existing IT infrastructure, and allow for the distribution of specific content channels to the desktop computers, laptops and tablets. Charvet said this has streamlined morning announcements considerably.

"With the Carousel Express Players, every teacher is provided links to the announcements that apply to their individual classes," Charvet said. "We parse out the information specific to the ninth, tenth and eleventh grade rooms onto different channels. Students receive the information that applies to them instead of spending 25 minutes going through announcements, many of which don't concern them specifically. Remote students can access this same information on their own devices at home."

"Carousel Cloud's functionality is phenomenal in terms of allowing me to deliver content to the appropriate zones throughout the building, and the templates are a big help," Charvet said. "The Express Players are great for delivering more individualized messaging, like if the principal has an announcement that pertains only to seniors, for example."

Currently, Grandview High is running six Carousel Cloud channels, but Charvet predicted that this number will grow exponentially in the near future.

"This building is a lot bigger, and we will need to increase the number of announcements we run in different zones," he said. "And once restrictions are lifted and sports teams can travel to away games, I can provide updates to everyone on campus, which is good for school spirit. With Carousel Cloud, it's easy to scale our network and enhance our real-time messaging capabilities."

Carousel Cloud's targeting capabilities bring the most immediate value.

"I can schedule specific content to run on specific screens, sit back, and let it go out automatically." he said. "Instead of just disseminating mass information, we're trying to target content to areas of the building where we know it will reach the right students."

Images courtesy of Carousel Digital Signage.