Schools in Sheffield Step Into the Future with a Cloud-Based Collaboration Platform
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Case Study Schools in Sheffield step into the future with a cloud-based collaboration platform New ways to communicate, collaborate Main benefits and create in order to help teachers and students achieve more. Support from experts who understand the requirements of the educational environment For a number of years, shared folders, libraries and other familiar Roll-out designed and synchronised with your SharePoint capabilities helped teachers and students in Sheffield school’s needs to store and share documents, presentations and other learning resources. Supported by Civica, the SharePoint platform was An intuitive platform that puts teachers in control customised to meet schools’ needs, and offered a user-friendly New ways to create learning resources that help to interface with bespoke branding. engage students With the release of Microsoft Office 365, Toby Wilson, IT Anytime access to content from any device. and eLearning consultant at Sheffield City Council, became convinced that teachers and students would benefit from the additional functionality available. As well as a more recent version of SharePoint, he wanted to offer schools cloud-based email, increased storage capacity, and more advanced capabilities for “Civica has great insight into creating and sharing interactive resources. what schools are looking for. To that end, Sheffield City Council chose to roll out Civica They’ve taken Office 365 — CloudBase. Powered by Office 365, and hosted in the Microsoft Azure cloud, it provides a centralised platform for school content which is basically a business and communications, that’s accessible from any device. tool — and adapted it to suit “Civica has great insight into what schools are looking for,” says the education environment.” Wilson. “They’ve taken Office 365 — which is basically a business tool — and adapted it to suit the education environment.” Toby Wilson, IT and eLearning consultant, Sheffield City Council Easy to use without Online working Advanced functionality IT support for increased transforms teaching efficiency and learning www.civica.com/cloudbase /CivicaUK linkedin.com/company/civica @civicaUK [email protected] The intuitiveness of the Civica CloudBase Advanced functionality transforms teaching platform means teachers can use it and learning without relying on IT specialists nearly Using Microsoft Sway teachers can create compelling learning resources and revision materials (and students can complete as much as before. assignments) that integrate images, video and text. The Civica CloudBase platform makes it easy to use video in an educational Easy to use without IT support setting while avoiding the safeguarding and privacy issues that can arise with public video-sharing platforms. Civica CloudBase was implemented in Sheffield’s schools over the course of about a year, with each school choosing its own Civica CloudBase automatically processes uploaded videos to launch date. “Civica worked with our schools to understand render versions that are optimised for different devices. Schools their strategic objectives and identify pain points, to ensure the have almost limitless cloud-based storage for the increasing platform was configured in the optimum way to meet their volumes of video and other rich content that’s being created, needs,” says Wilson. “They also helped us make schools aware of which takes the strain off local infrastructure. the full potential of Civica and continue to do so as new features are released.” “Teachers were reluctant to use video in the past because the experience was so poor, but Civica CloudBase makes it seamless The intuitiveness of the Civica CloudBase platform means and straightforward,” says Wilson. “It’s one of the ways that Civica teachers can use it without relying on IT specialists nearly as CloudBase is shifting the technology conversation in schools much as before; and there’s been a noticeable drop in calls to the from ‘how do I use it?’ to ‘what can I achieve with it?’” help desk. “Everything is much simpler — it takes just five clicks to set up a new SharePoint area instead of 26,” says Wilson. “So About Sheffield City Council teachers aren’t faced with a steep learning curve every time, and Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan can be more self-sufficient in the way they use the platform.” borough of Sheffield, the third largest English district by Schools are free to choose the extent to which they use population with over 1.5 million people. Sheffield City Council Civica CloudBase. “If a school just wants to use it for staff manages 137 primary schools, 28 secondary schools, a sixth form communications and storing documents, that’s fine,” says Wilson. college, and 12 special schools. www.sheffield.gov.uk “As long as Civica CloudBase helps a school do what it wants to About Civica do more easily, it’s doing its job.” Online working for increased efficiency Civica works in partnership with over 6,000 schools worldwide to enhance learning and ease school management; creating Of course, many of Sheffield’s schools go further and use innovative, fit-for-purpose ICT solutions: features that can make a real difference to the learning CloudBase, an intuitive collaboration, content and learning environment. Among the more advanced capabilities are platform for students, teachers and parents Microsoft Classroom, which lets teachers collect homework online. Students can ‘hand in’ documents to an online folder, Finance, HR and Payroll systems for academies and Multi but can’t see or manipulate other documents in the folder; while Academy Trusts teachers can see all the documents, respond to submissions and iWise, a teacher centred system to manage Attendance, add comments. Assessment and Behaviour “This is just one example of how Civica ensured that CloudBase E-Learning training and support works in the way that’s right for schools,” says Wilson. “Teachers Student management. wanted to prevent students being able to delete or copy others’ work; but wanted two-way communications with them without www.civica.com/education having to use email.” Around 25,000 users have email accounts on the Civica CloudBase platform, including students at many of the schools. “CloudBase makes video seamless Some schools also use closed email and communications and straightforward. It’s one of groups to give teams or groups easy access to shared resources. So members of a geography field trip could share a calendar, the ways that CloudBase is shifting receive reminders and post documents; or students performing the technology conversation in in a concert could access the music using Civica CloudBase to enable them to practise at home. schools from ‘how do I use it?’ to ‘what can I achieve with it?” Toby Wilson, IT and eLearning consultant, Sheffield City Council www.civica.com/cloudbase /CivicaUK linkedin.com/company/civica @civicaUK [email protected].