New Video Wall Makes a Bold Statement in Upper School
“The kids love seeing their pictures up there,” said IT Manager Mike Dauphin, referring to the school’s new video wall.
Standing 9 feet tall and 16 feet wide, it is the crowning jewel of the Upper School cafeteria. The wall is comprised of 16 55-inch TV screens and can be completely customizable to share information with the school community.
On any morning you can look up at the screen, located over the food service line, and see that week’s lunch menu, school announcements, sports schedules, photos, videos and more.
“It’s a blank canvas,” said Dauphin. “We can decide if a particular photo or announcement fills one screen, six screens, or all 16 screens. The possibilities are endless.”
The Upper School cafeteria is more than just a lunch room. It is used for assemblies, meetings, art shows and countless other school and community gatherings.
The cafeteria has so many windows and gets so much sunlight during the day that an LCD projector and screen were not an option in the space, so school leaders brainstormed other ideas. Dauphin had seen digital signage in airports and thought it might be a good solution for Atlantis. After a little research, he zeroed in on the video wall.
“Our hope is that the video wall will help build community within the school,” Dauphin explained. “We will use it to recognize student achievements and awards and applaud their successes. We are also sharing teacher and staff profiles–fun facts like ‘why did you get into teaching?’ and ‘favorite foods.’ We want to build connections between students and staff. We want students to see the adults around them as people they can talk to and trust and not just as authority figures.”
Dauphin is continually adding new content to the wall. Coaches are invited to send in videos and photos from games. Teachers can share photos of class projects. The wall is flanked by a pair of speakers, so it can be used to show movies or play music.
Administrators are considering using the wall to showcase sponsors as well.
“We are fortunate to have the continued support from our community partners, many of whom have donated generously to Atlantis over the years,” said Robert Beatty, executive director of Atlantis. “We are looking into ways to recognize their generosity using the video wall.”
Feedback on the new wall has been extremely positive so far, and if that continues, they hope to build a wall for the Lower School.
Behind the Scenes: Building the video wall
Behind the Scenes: TV screens are added to the new ACS video wall