Independent School Network Enchances Digital Learning Provision with Uniguest’s eStream platform.
The Girls’ Day School Trust is the UK’s leading network of independent girls’ schools, with 20,000 pupils aged 3 to 18 in 24 schools and two academies throughout England and Wales.
Every Trust school and academy is different but, like a family, shares some of its DNA with the others. Running through them all is the belief that every girl is unique, and they all need to be encouraged and channeled in their own way.
After exploring a number of different video and media management and distribution platforms, and a period of presentations, trials, and technical consultation, the Trust commissioned eStream.
Zentrale Projektziele
- NSharing best practices
- NDeliver live streams of key trust events
- NFurther, enhance Flipped Learning delivery
- NEnable collaboration between member schools and academies to make the most of being a group
Extending the Reach of Events and Activities
eStream’s live streaming capabilities were key when selecting a video and media management and distribution platform. The Trust runs a lot of events at its schools, which are located all over the country. Staff and students can’t always get to every event, and the ability to broadcast events to parents and other schools is very important.
A example of this is the annual GDST Young Leaders’ Conference, which saw an ‘Apprentice-style’ challenge involving 125 pupils from GDST schools and a series of inspirational speakers, including the Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute.
“eStream’s live streaming capabilities meant that we could share the wonderful work the girls were doing far more widely than we otherwise would have been able. Making events like this accessible to pupils in other Trust schools magnifies learning opportunities, and also means that parents and the wider school community who are unable to travel to events can be part of them.”
Facilitating Flipped Learning
The Trust’s ‘flipped classroom’ approach to learning gives students access to online content before lessons, which they then work on together with teachers in the classroom. eStream’s VLE plugin has enabled staff and students to upload their content seamlessly as well as embed their content into the VLE to allow maximum engagement with video content.
Our schools are geographically dispersed, and technology provides significant opportunities for us to collaborate and share best practice – something which is very important to us. eStream is enabling us to do this.
Head of Learning Technology and Innovation
A Brand-Specific Interface
The GDST had a clear vision of how they wanted their eStream portal to look and feel, eStream’s powerful theming and branding tools enabled them to create a look and feel that is unique to the Trust.
“The absolute beauty of Planet eStream is that it is an incredibly sophisticated product, which is also very easy to use. At its simplest level, it makes media storage and sharing easy, but you can also dive deeper and use more complex tools to create and share content and bespoke learning resources. Ultimately, my goal is that eStream will help transform the way we look at learning”*