Rialto Unified School District
Rialto Unified School District
Rialto, CA
Education
Mission: Bring Teachers, Students and Parents Together
Rialto Unified School District, one of the nation’s largest, needed AVI-SPL to deliver communication systems that would transform the way the school teaches and conducts business.
District leaders wanted a system – built on Cisco architecture — based on high-definition, networked video that would build awareness of educational initiatives and address emergency situations with immediate notifications. By incorporating video and distance learning, Rialto also sought to bring a prestigious ‘university’ feel to its schools.
“AVI-SPL has become a partner with us in education. They are there when we need them.”
– Joseph Martinez, Rialto School Board trustee
“When you ask students what their concerns are, and what they would like to learn and how, the newest technologies are top of mind,” says Joseph Martinez, Rialto School Board trustee member.
In accordance with the school’s funding requirements, AVI-SPL had to complete this fast-tracked project in just 120 days.
Action: Communications From a Centralized Platform
AVI-SPL completed the project on time, working closely with Rialto and Cisco to make sure milestones were met. At the end of its four-month window, AVI-SPL had implemented the largest deployment of Cisco TelePresence and digital media in any school district in the nation.
Cisco Digital Media Players in 72 classrooms throughout the district facilitate digital signage, IPTV and over-the-air broadcast TV. Additional digital signage displays and media players in areas outside the classroom, such as lobbies and hallways, were added to deliver news, event information and wayfinding assistance.
Impact: Extending the Virtual Classroom
The custom Cisco T3 TelePresence, located in a room within the library, empowers students to take virtual field trips to museums and interact with guest lecturers from remote locations. It also utilizes Cisco’s Enterprise Content Delivery System (ECDS), which helps Rialto easily scale and quickly retrieve video and media over its existing WAN infrastructure.
Since the integration was finalized in November 2011, students at Rialto Middle School have used Cisco TelePresence for virtual field trips to NASA and the Great Barrier Reef. During another virtual field trip, students interacted with middle school students from San Diego to learn about Chinese culture.
“Almost immediately, the students were engaged, they were focused, and they wanted to learn,” says Martinez.
With positive feedback from parents, students and teachers alike, three additional virtual field trips had been planned for the remainder of the school year.
“With the integration of this technology, retention and collaboration has increased, because the students are able to learn in a medium that they interface with by choice all day long,” says Martinez.
Using Cisco’s Show and Share, teachers and students can create and upload video presentations, instructional lessons and other content that can be obtained on demand on a variety of devices – including desktop computer, iPhone, and digital signage display. With Digital Signs, Rialto can also design, deliver and manage a library of digital signage content from a centralized system.
Such is Rialto Middle School’s commitment to the new technology that it has developed elective courses in which the students learn how to create content and push it to the digital media players so that they can they teach other students and faculty.
“AVI-SPL has become a partner with us in education,” says Martinez. “They are there when we need them.”
