Stuart Bailey, ICT Support for Catholic Education South Australia, brings a level of innovation to his role that makes you really excited about the future of education.
“As long as technology doesn’t dictate when you wake up, sleep, and eat, there’s really no limit to where this will go,” Stuart said. “I can’t see why technology can’t continue to improve the learning experience in ways we haven’t considered yet.
“I’d like to see more VR in the classroom, which would really further our use of Vivi in being able to interact with a VR session across a more dynamic classroom. The incorporation of genuine 3D interactions, the use of more of the science side of things in the technical world, more collaborative 3D printing and coding – this is the future of interaction between classmates.”
“And for us, it really starts with Vivi as the point of ease, that’s flexible enough to work on every platform. We’re already seeing things like virtual keyboards and virtual teachers popping into a room getting closer to the classroom – it’s great to have something that plugs us into the future.
Stuart oversees Vivi’s use at Catholic Education South Australia, where Microsoft is used across the board with the full suite of 365. Students use Microsoft Teams and are provided with a laptop, which they took home during virtual learning. They also have iPads in classrooms that connect to Vivi for enhanced mobility as they migrate off the final fleet of projectors.
“We are 100% Vivi connected, with the ability to work across different machines. We have very little issues from anyone, everyone is very pleased.
“Vivi really cops a hammering here; they get used every day. And our teachers really rely on it now, being able to walk in with their laptop and connect so simply. Our school has become more WiFi dependent as we’re getting away from cabling and putting access points into each classroom.
“I personally really enjoy that I can do the firmware update from the console and I don’t have to run around and check every machine, it’s just done. There is very little failure. Some of the boxes were turning on and off at one point but I’ve gotten familiar with the console and discovered it was the TVs fault. Vivi runs nice and smooth.
“The kids love it, the teachers love it. We love the simplicity of it, it’s just very easy to use. Even when we have guests come in and just want to present and don’t want to connect through WiFi or download the app, we have them connect via HDMI into the Vivi box.
“Our teachers aren’t tied to the TV and they’re presenting what they want to present, not just their entire desktop. When they boot up the TVs, it’s Vivi straight away. That’s the way we’ve set it up.
“We still have 6-8 projectors onto whiteboards with Vivi plugged in, but projectors can be cumbersome with replacing fans and light bulbs and they’re big and bulky. Now we have these big screens connected to Vivi and it doesn’t get any easier than that.”
