Digital Signage is being increasingly incorporated into schools and educational establishments, but what exactly are the benefits? How can Digital Signage for education engage and inform your students, as well as build a sense of community? We draw on our industry experience to bring you a quick-read guide on all the top advantages.
Student communication challenges
However good your intranet, newsletters or noticeboards, the chances are that they aren’t being seen and read by all your students and certainly not at the time you want. The challenge most schools and educational establishments are faced with is how to deliver mass communications efficiently, and with the speed and immediacy which students have now come to expect. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that schools and educational establishments are competing for students’ attention with so many other forms of real-time digital communications, like social media. With Digital Signage for education, you can level the playing field, and engage and deliver information in real-time, and in the kind of digital formats with which students are much more likely to engage. Better yet, you can do so, while also centralising and streamlining your content management processes. Cloud-based Digital Signage solutions make it quick and easy to remotely create, manage and deliver student notifications from absolutely anywhere, whether that’s to one, some or all your Digital Signage screens. Some of the Digital Signage content management systems (CMS) also offer App Stores from which you can download content tools, or alternatively apps, such as Screenfeed, that can help you make use of existing social media feeds. With advanced scheduling tools, you can immediately go live, or schedule start and end times for your content, so that it runs between pre-selected dates and at designated times, or constantly on a loop.
Top Five Digital Signage benefits
Digital Signage for wayfinding
Student campuses can be hard to navigate, even with the help of maps or apps. Interactive Digital Signage wayfinding solutions make it easier for students to find their way by offering specific directions on big, easy-to-follow screens, which you can strategically install in high-traffic locations.
Digital Signage for building a student community
Another key benefit of Digital Signage for schools and education is that it can help make use of digital communication platforms, like Facebook and X, that students are most likely to use. If your educational establishment has its own social media channels, you can use CMS Digital Signage apps, like Screenfeed to stream curated feeds on-screen. This could be run as full-screen content, or alternatively, as a feed at the bottom or corner of the screen, alongside, your latest intranet updates. Digital Signage effectively broadens out the reach and audience for your existing digital communications, enabling students to see them as they move around your halls and campuses. Moreover, with Digital Signage features like local playlists, content can be tailored for specific campus blocks or faculties to personalise messaging and increase engagement. Thanks to the availability of Digital Signage approval functions, schools and educational establishments can also allow authorised students to contribute to the content line-up. It’s a secure way to include and involve students in the communication process, and in doing so, can really help build a sense of belonging and community.
Digital Signage for student information
With Digital Signage, you have the power to inclusively deliver information across the entire student body – live and in real-time. This isn’t just via the on-screen display of school/ university intranet and social media updates, but also via live townhalls, hosted by leadership figures, like headmasters or heads of faculties that might not otherwise have the chance to engage with students. CMS apps for IBM Video and YouTube can be used to stream sessions. Web triggers are another helpful Digital Signage tool, enabling staff to override scheduled content at the touch of a button to bring students special news, announcements, and notifications in real-time.
Digital Signage for health and safety
These Digital Signage web triggers can be used in conjunction with CMS apps for platforms like Layered Solutions, which enable you to integrate your establishment’s fire alarm system with your Digital Signage solution. The benefit is that you can automate fire alerts to run on-screen, when your fire alarm is triggered, along with any pertinent emergency instructions, like where the nearest fire exits and extinguishers are located.
Digital Signage to measure student engagement
Digital Signage also makes it easy to measure student engagement. Information can, for instance, be delivered via on-screen QR codes that students just need to scan. It’s a simple way to share documents with students, serving as a reminder for those who haven’t filled in administrative forms. More than this, it helps staff keep track of how many students have interacted with the on-screen messaging and received the relevant forms.
For more on why you should consider using Digital Signage for schools and education, tune into our latest Digital Signage Explored episode.
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