KCAV and Rise Vision Help Middle School Use Digital Signage and Social Media App to Boost Student Motivation and Engagement

Derby, Kansas – Derby North Middle School (DNMS) in Derby, Kansas, has found a unique and effective way to build culture and increase student engagement with the help of Rise Vision digital signage software and Class Intercom.

DNMS had faced issues with their previous digital signage provider, including hard-to-use software, inconsistent uptime, and lack of support. With the help of Kansas City Audio Visual (KCAV), a Rise Vision partner, DNMS switched to Rise Vision for their digital signage needs. 

DNMS has taken a unique approach to student recognition with the integration of its social media accounts and Rise Vision displays. With the use of the Class Intercom app, students create photo and video content, write a post about DNMS, and select which school social media channel to post it to. The content then gets delivered to moderators at DNMS who approve it or send back changes to the student. Once the content is approved, it gets published on DNMS’s social media accounts and automatically pushed to displays around the school for everyone to see.…Read More

Rise Vision Wins 5 New Software Awards

Rise Vision, a provider of digital signage software for K-12 schools across North America, just extended their lead as the #1 digital signage software solution by winning Capterra’s Shortlist 2022 award, Tech & Learning’s Back to School Award of Excellence, the G2 award for Leader and Momentum Leader, and ranked in Software Advices 2022 FrontRunners report.

 
“We are absolutely thrilled and honored with these awards. We couldn’t have done it without our amazing team and their dedication to helping schools communicate better and create a positive school culture using digital signage.” – Brian Loosbrock, CEO, Rise Vision

But what do these awards really mean to you?…Read More

Carousel Digital Signage and Indiana School District Get into the School Spirit

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA  Carousel Digital Signage has provided Elkhart Community Schools with a seamless way to communicate timely, up-to-date messages to its diverse network of students, faculty, staff, and visitors. The K-12 public school district now uses Carousel Cloud to distribute department-specific messaging throughout its high school. The school district is also working with Carousel partner Jamf to securely convert Apple TV devices into media players, and providing access to meeting room schedules on mobile devices.

Based in Elkhart, Ind., Elkhart Community Schools serves approximately 12,000 students. The public school district is comprised of 14 elementary schools, three middle schools, and one high school. Elkhart Community Schools also oversees the Elkhart Area Career Center, which offers programs for high school juniors and seniors seeking to make the transition into college or a career.   

Elkhart Community Schools has now successfully rolled out the new solution at Elkhart High School, explains Stephen DeCook, Technology Deployment Administrator at the district. The system is configured into separate zones to address the needs of different departments, such as arts, athletics, business, and food services. Each department can now contribute content and messages related to classes, special events, and programs, with food services updating menu options daily.   

DeCook’s technology department has also integrated Carousel Cloud with an RSS feed that displays internal-facing messaging about system status throughout the school, which helps to streamline troubleshooting and service calls for an IT and technology team with limited human resources. There is also a main zone for more generalized, school-wide announcements, which Carousel Cloud disseminates to all departments.  

“Contributors from different departments will display relevant themes depending on what day of the week it is, or if it’s a special day celebrating a certain event in history, to keep content fresh and engaging,” said DeCook. “We are using Carousel’s Education template, and right out of the box it was ready to go. We added a few pieces of our own content and were up and running.”  

One significant advantage of Carousel Digital Signage’s partnership with Jamf is Elkhart personnel can access conference room scheduling information using their iPads through the Jamf’s secure mobile device management (MDM) platform. DeCook says that the integration has streamlined the reservation process considerably.   

“It’s really helped folks who need to have impromptu meetings,” he explained. “They immediately know which rooms are in use and which are free without interrupting any meetings in progress.”   

Elkhart is also taking advantage of the system’s built-in weather and news feeds, and DeCook adds that his team is in the process of integrating Carousel Cloud with Singlewire’s InformaCast mass notification system for emergency messaging.   

DeCook notes that Carousel Cloud’s third-party integration capabilities help to optimize the school district’s return on investment. “We’re a Google shop, and it’s been easy to merge Carousel with Google. I don’t have to set up an additional account for the users that are         responsible for developing and distributing content,” he explained. “It’s easy to configure, and they offer a ton of information. And, whenever I’ve needed additional help and reached out to Carousel, their support has been excellent.”  

Five users are responsible for content development and delivery today, and this number will continue to expand as the district scales up its usage. DeCook, who estimates that the user count will grow to approximately 20 people, shares that Elkhart Community Schools will soon deploy Carousel Cloud at several of its elementary schools. “They’ve seen how the signage at the high school works and want to benefit from the same features,” he said.   

DeCook predicts that this continuing expansion will be relatively straightforward, thanks to Carousel’s intuitive user interface. “It’s a really robust system, but as soon as you understand the basics it’s really easy to navigate,” he said. “And through our Google integration we have full  control over who has access to which parts of the system, which enables us maintain our strict security standards.”  

Digital signage in general also helps to keep a diverse population of staff, students, and visitors engaged, DeCook adds. “We have a large community of English-as-a-Second Language (ESL) students, and the food services staff, for example, is excited about being able to display visuals alongside menu listings to help those individuals understand the content more easily,” he said. “We are also giving students up-to-date and sometimes real-time information on events and happenings, or opportunities to sign up for interesting programs. That helps us get everybody excited about what’s going on at our schools. It’s no secret that kids aren’t always thrilled about having to be at school, but when we can leverage this tool to show them some of the cool things that are going on, that helps to inspire more involvement.”  

About Carousel Digital Signage

Carousel is Digital Signage Content Management Software that is easy to use, scalable, and  reliable. With a deep feature set and strong technology partnerships Carousel gives you the most value in digital signage. Carousel Digital Signage is a division of Tightrope Media Systems. You can reach the Carousel team at (866) 866-4118, or visit www.carouselsignage.com.  

Good News Network and Rise Vision Partner to Help Schools Foster Positive Learning Environments

(May 26, 2022) –– Wichita, KS –  With childhood depression and anxiety rising during the pandemic and disturbing news stories only adding to the mental health burden in our schools, it is the perfect time to be delivering some positive news headlines into hallways and classrooms across the U.S. That’s exactly what the Good News Network® is now providing in a new partnership with digital signage company Rise Vision.

Launching this month in over 120 schools, Rise Vision and Good News Network (GNN) are spreading positivity with uplifting news content on video screens for grades K-12. Now, students and teachers can stop and read about kindness and scientific breakthroughs on new templates created by Rise Vision.

Founded in 1997, millions of people have turned to GNN as an antidote to the barrage of negativity experienced in the mainstream media. Because of its long history, staying power, and public trust, GNN is #1 on Google for good news. “Especially this year on our 25th anniversary, GNN is thrilled to be inspiring teachers and school students with optimism and hope during these challenging times,” said GNN founder and CEO Geri Weis-Corbley.…Read More

Case Study: How Weston School District Built a Digital Strategy with Digital Signage, 15 Minutes at a Time

(May 12, 2022) –– Rise Vision has released a new case study of Weston School District, a small school district which serves three rural communities of Cazenovia, Hillpoint, and Lime Ridge, Weston and has a student population of 300 students. While Weston School District doesn’t face the problems a very large school does, it does face its own challenges.

Amanda Keller, who has been social media and public relations director at Weston for the past 4 years discussed the district’s challenges of its students across 12 years of compulsory education. Back in 2018, Weston struggled with keeping families updated with printed, physical newsletters.

‘It was frustrating to put so much time into communication we knew would be outdated before it reached our families and community,’ Keller continues. ‘It was also time-consuming to create bulletin boards that were very limited in how we could use them. These bulletin boards also had to be recreated often to keep the images current.’…Read More

Showbie brings Hybrid learning around the World content to TrilbyTV

Tuesday 3rd May 2022 – Showbie and TrilbyTV have announced an exciting new partnership that will bring ‘Hybrid learning around the World’ content to digital signage screens in schools across the UK. It adds to an already epic education line-up that includes; Vocabulary Ninja, Rodocodo, Britannica and WWF. 

The perfect combination to get students learning about different languages

The partnership combines TrilbyTV’s easy to use digital signage solution with Showbie’s ‘Hybrid learning around the World’ content, creating a fantastic way to get students to learn about different languages. It shows short, easy to remember words and phrases, automatically switching between different countries, enabling students to pick up bite sized pieces of information to expand their foreign language vocabulary. TrilbyTV’s Neil Emery, had this to say about the new partnership,…Read More

Animalia and Rise Vision Partner to Teach Animal Facts and Statistics Through K-12 Digital Signage

(April 29, 2022) –– Looking for new and exciting ways to teach your students about the animal kingdom? Look no further than Animalia, an online encyclopedia of 6341 mammals, 10360 birds, 4464 reptiles, 3421 amphibians, and 4906 mollusks. This month, Rise Vision has partnered with Animalia to help students learn, explore, and value the magnificent diversity of the animal kingdom.

What makes this partnership so great is for no additional cost to schools, Rise Vision has created new templates including the Animal Of The Day, which shows a new animal every day of the year, with fun facts including the type of vore, life span, movement speed, and population size, along with a high resolution image of the animal.

Want to add these templates to your displays?…Read More

Case Study: How Edison High School Is Using Rise Vision to Serve Its Students’ Diverse Needs

(March 24, 2022) –– Rise Vision has released a new case study of Edison High School, a small school in Elmira Heights, New York, with a student body of 110 students with learning differences. Thomas A. Edison High School has long been rated in the top 10% of educational technology environments in the USA and is committed to find new ways to improve emergency response effectiveness and preparation using digital signage.

Dr. Troy Spetter, Director of Educational Technology since June 2018, is responsible for orchestrating the school’s technology, training and security within the context of a greater vision for Edison and its students. Specifically, Dr. Spetter has helped Edison move away from relying on dated infrastructure and toward web-enabled services, cloud-connected collaboration systems, single sign-on implementation, and a totally new security and backup model. 

Currently, Edison uses three screens with Rise Vision. Two are fully engaged in student-oriented messaging. The third is located near the school president’s office, where visitors, including donors, may be waiting or passing by en route to a meeting with senior school staff. This screen is used to display schedules when no visitors are expected. Content can be tailored to visitors’ interests.…Read More

How George School Uses Location Driven Digital Signage to Improve Communication

George School is a 128-year-old Quaker coeducational boarding and day school in Pennsylvania. It’s home to 540 students representing 37 countries and 18 states. Well known for academic excellence, George Schools has a 95% IB Diploma completion rate, one of the world’s highest. Michael Hodgin is the Director of Technology at George School and has been with the school since 2000. Before George School, Michael worked as the Director of Technology at a school in Maryland and was a mathematics teacher.

Digital signage has always been compelling to Michael, and he first got into it almost ten years ago. Michael started by researching paid and free solutions for George School. Unfortunately, Michael’s research found that most paid digital signage solutions were too expensive, and the free solutions were too complicated to set up and manage. Then, in 2014 a peer-recommended Rise Vision to Michael. The timing
was perfect as George School had a new athletic center that needed signage. Michael tried out Rise Vision and was impressed by the low cost and ease of use. Michael got funding and started the process to get their digital signage up and running.

Location Driven Communication…Read More

Rise Vision Helps Schools Use Digital Signage to Make Kindness the Norm ®

(January  8, 2021) –– Rise Vision has released three new templates to help schools promote kindness on their digital signage. Schools can now join the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and encourage students to begin building a new routine that creates intentional moments of kindness, laughter, and delight. 

With the new Kindness Calendar template, a new set of kindness ideas will automatically appear each week. By using the World Kindness Day template, schools can celebrate and raise awareness of kindness. And with the Random Acts of Kindness day template, schools can share ideas for random acts of kindness to encourage students to participate. Schools can share these templates on displays throughout their district, classrooms, and common areas to create a more caring and positive culture. 

“We surveyed our customers recently and learned that one of the top goals schools have for their digital signage is creating a positive school culture. It was close second only to improving communication. We’re thrilled to release these new templates which will help schools achieve their goal of creating positive, caring, and kind learning environments.” – Shea Darlison, Head of Marketing, Rise Vision…Read More