Embracing MyVideoSpot: Stories from Central Bucks School District
One Halloween, heavy rains forced a Central Bucks elementary school to cancel its outdoor parade. Rather than cancelling the fun entirely, they instructed several spookily dressed students to skip down the hallway, and live streamed the impromptu parade for parents to watch.
“The principal received around forty emails from grateful parents and guardians watching the stream. It was really cool to see them be part of the experience. That’s not something that we would have been able to do before MyVideoSpot,” Video Specialist Matt Murray shares.
Easy Video Solutions for Education
MyVideoSpot makes it easy to create, store, and share videos in a school environment. Central Bucks School District now uses it to live stream, provide morning announcements, and give students real broadcasting experience.
“We really wanted to make our live streams as easy to access as possible,” Murray said. “We wanted an easier way to be transparent with our school board meetings.”
Gamechanger: School-Owned Streams
The district initially considered using YouTube to run live streams, but this forced viewers to use a platform outside of the school system. It also raised safety concerns, as YouTube suggests videos and runs ads.
“We were afraid that when a teacher would go to YouTube to watch a live stream, their students might see content that might not be appropriate,” Murray said.
With MyVideoSpot, the school simply shares a URL. Parents, students, and community members click that link to watch the stream—and because the stream automatically records and saves to the same URL, they can always go back and view it later. And the whole system is completely owned and controlled by the school district.
Both the school and stakeholders clearly approved: Within six months, Central Bucks District had streamed over 1,000 times, and the school board meetings channel had over 600 viewers.
Encouraging Student Engagement
MyVideoSpot’s live stream also solved the problem of morning announcements, as the district was struggling with old, outdated TVs and wanted a more reliable solution.
Teachers now simply play the stream on their laptops, which they then connect to a large projector. Now over 16,000 students watch the morning announcements every day.
Better yet, the students aren’t just watching; they’re producing. Media classes often assign students to shoot and broadcast the morning announcements,
“The students get to practice using professional equipment to produce video,” Murray said. “In a culture where live streaming and video is becoming increasingly ingrained in life, it’s remarkable that students get this experience.”
Learn more about MyVideoSpot here.