Our past days of being Apple Education Trainers saw us sitting in school receptions looking at switched off digital signage screens or those that promoted little or no impact.
Since those early days, we have been working extremely hard to change mindsets so that schools and colleges understand the effective use of digital signage in education. Digital signage is the perfect medium for whole school communication and keeping all stakeholders up to date with your latest news and information.
When developing TrilbyTV we also wanted to make sure our education customers could showcase beyond their internal signage screens. So we created our Public Links feature as the perfect way for our customers to share all content types beyond the school and college gates. Turning the ‘Allow Public Access’ feature on, allows all content types to be shared with the following options:
- Weblink
- Embed Code
- Image Link
- Share to Google Classroom
Weblink Using our Public Link Feature
The quickest and easiest way to share your content with TrilbyTV is using a Public Link. You can easily copy and paste this into a parent email or text to share. A great example would be this digital citizenship video shared by Digital Learning Lead at Portsmouth College, Chris Wood.
Once opened in a web browser the viewer is presented with a single-window containing the content ready to play. The web page also contains a QR code which can be downloaded and used to allow further sharing.
“Using public links on our TrilbyTV system extends our reach beyond the classroom at Portsmouth College. We bring parents, carers and the wider community together through our TrilbyTV system. We share innovation, passion and creativity on a daily basis.” Chris Wood – Digital Learning Lead, Portsmouth College
Embed Code with TrilbyTV Public Links
An embed code is a piece of HTML code. You can add it to a website, blog or VLE to display interactive content. The embed code points back to a website where the content is being hosted which in this case is TrilbyTV. A good example is UTC Portsmouth who when adding their school Twitter feed to TrilbyTV have used the embed code to also add their tweets to the front of the website. School websites often present Twitter feeds in a table format which lacks impact. With TrilbyTV it looks fantastic, can be set to use the schools brand colours and draws the viewer in with our bespoke animation.
“Using the TrilbyTV Twitter widget for our own website made sense to us instantly. The design and animations are a good way to stand out on our home page. Using the widget for our TV screens and our website allows our marketing team an easy way to manage this in one place!” Lee Setford – ICT Network Manager, UTC Portsmouth.
Sharing Image Links with Public Links
Image links were created to allow content to be added to blog posts that won’t allow direct video embedding. WordPress blogs for example, typically disallow on-page video embedding. TrilbyTV generates a code that inserts a thumbnail version of an image made from the content. This then links to a public page.
Share TrilbyTV Content Directly to Google Classroom Using Public Links
As a certified Google Education Partner TrilbyTV works seamlessly with G Suite apps including Slides, Calendar and Classroom. Google Classroom is a free web service, developed by Google for schools. It aims to simplify creating, distributing, and grading assignments in a paperless way. You can share TrilbyTV content directly to Google Classroom which supports various options such as a new assignment, question, announcement or supporting material.
National Geographic created a short documentary on Bioluminescence, the video example below displays how this was shared directly to Google Classroom to create a new student assignment in science.
This is a great way to utilise content already uploaded to TrilbyTV to support your students or to share a congratulations slide directly from TrilbyTV to your Google Classroom Stream so all your students feel valued. Play the video above and see for yourself how easy it is to share.
At the time of writing, much the world of education finds itself working from home because of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak. More than ever this highlights the need for cloud-based solutions that allow sharing beyond the school gates, with simple processes. That is why TrilbyTV public links are a great way to reinforce messaging. It keeps your communities up to date with the latest information and important news.
For more info see the TrilbyTV support page for embedding content into your VLE or website.
Take a look at Beyond the Signage Screen – Part 2 – Web Players