Introduction
We believe schools should impress their audiences with the latest indoor and outdoor digital signage screens placed strategically across campus. Paper notices and static sign boards are now a thing of the past and replacing those with school LED displays will spark interest and stir up some interesting conversation. So, think hard about how you can be flexible with your signage in order to keep students up-to-date with global events and have real-time information about the activities taking place in the school.
When school LED signs are incorporated in educational institutes, communication is streamlined and information can be shared easily for public viewing. In fact, after you transform to digital screens, you will notice how the pathways are congested as people gather to view attractive content on electronic signs for schools.
Here is a brief guide on how you should decide what digital signage components to invest in when introducing digital communication for your school.
Hardware concerns
Educational institutes such as yours probably has very limited budgets to spend on a digital signage campaign. So, look out for the best LED signs and media players that are within your financial capacity.
Firstly, you need to find a suitably sized LED screen, depending on where you are going to place it. Also consider the software that supports this screen because based on that you will decide which media player to purchase. It could be an app or a USB device, whichever works well with the screen.
If you are up for purchasing more than one screen, we recommend investing in a commercial grade media player as this provides added features that can benefit you in an educational setting. These devices are manufactured with a metal chassis to make it more durable and to control heat dissipation after lengthy usage.
Software concerns
When deciding which kind of custom LED sign software should be purchased from led signage manufacturers, consider the following:
- Simple and easy to use.
- Anyone should be able to control the screen, regardless of their physical location.
- Cost-effective, be it on a single screen or multiple screen scale.
- Pairable with cost-effective hardware.
- Anyone can create new content or use existing content so as to avoid burdening IT personnel.
- Solutions provider should be genuinely interested in helping schools embrace technology; not just focusing on sales of their software.
Content management
It is true that digital screens are attractive and attention grabbing, but the content has to be relevant so that students and teachers will return for more information. Although static signs are difficult to update, digital signage is very flexible and allows users to keep changing content and optimizing it for maximum reach – even when users are not physically close to the screen.
Content files can be uploaded from wherever they are saved – be it your personal computer, cloud platforms such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and so on. Most digital signage software also supports image files, PDFs, PowerPoints and other Office formats to make content uploading and managing easier. Timetables, class notices, images of events, extracurricular activity information, videos of high achieving students and teachers, and much more can be uploaded to the audiences of your school LED signage.
When several LED displays are deployed across the campus, your digital signage platform will allow to organize and schedule content in a way where the right places will have the right information being displayed at the right time. You can create a playlist for specific days and hours, upload the content such as timetables, events and other notices, and then instruct with the order in which the files should show and for how long each should be on display.
In fact, you can create several tailor-made lists, categorized for different screens. For example, the indoor digital signage at the sports center can have a playlist, another one for the library, one for special holidays, one for emergency situations, and so on. You then have to instruct which screen will show which playlist at which time. For example, important notices can be displayed in the morning, videos during recess and when students are free for strolling, extra-curricular activity schedules later in the afternoon and so on. Once these instructions are given, the screen will automatically display the relevant content and you have nothing else to worry about!
Using digital signage apps
Take your electronic signage for schools one step further by incorporating a software application to maintain refreshing content for each of the screens.
A school is more than just providing lessons and learning. It is a hub where future leaders are being created who may probably be decision makers for your country in years to come. Hence, we at LED Craft Inc insist on keeping your students up-to-date with world news, financial information geographical updates and more. With mobile software applications, users can add live news streams from popular news channels to be displayed on school LED screens. The indoor digital signage in pathways can have weather updates and other general news, while those in an economics class could be seeing currency information and those in the sporting arena can be seeing sports news. Social media dashboards can also be incorporated to keep students informed, entertained and part of the community.
Conclusion
We believe that digital signage campaigns should be implemented in all educational facilities, and for this to be made possible, we ensure our hardware is affordable, software is useful, and content management is convenient.
