The municipality of Bærum installs 224 Sony BRAVIA Professional Displays to enhance students’ learning experiences

The Norwegian municipality of Bærum has been gearing up for the project “Digital School Day” since the start of 2015. “Digital School Day” is a project where schools across the municipality of Bærum are upgrading teaching rooms to enhance the learning experiences of their students, aid their educational development, and prepare them for a truly digital future. Following a successful pilot project the municipality rolled out an impressive installation of 224 Sony BRAVIA Professional Displays across 14 institutions in the school district.

Background

Since the start of 2015, the Norwegian municipality of Bærum has been working towards establishing a modernised digital learning environment for its students. With this goal in mind, the municipality started a pilot project with four schools that were equipped with projectors, screens and boards to bring collaborative technology into the classroom.

Following the successful pilot project, the municipality of Bærum set out to include 14 more schools in the project “Digital School Day”. The schools are committed to using technology for learning and education, so all students and teachers have their own tablet to use as a learning tool. The municipality has chosen more than 30 different apps for the students and teachers to use for learning, while students prepare their homework and hand in papers via their tablet.

Challenges

All educational institutions are focused on connecting with students and creating a more inspiring learning environment. Today’s students are accustomed to more interactive and visual experiences than previous generations, and educators need to adopt similar practices to engage and stimulate their students. For the municipality of Bærum, this meant adapting new educational tools, and integrating technology as a part of the lecture and classroom environments.

The schools’ previous solutions were based on projectors and boards, so Bærum’s key priority was to find a better and more automated solution. The required specifications from the municipality were at a minimum of 70” screens delivered at a reasonable price and with a matte surface. The municipality required the solution to seamlessly connect to tablets and with auto switching to reduce start up time. It was also important to the municipality and the involved schools that the displays could easily be connected to PCs through HDMI or VGA cables, in addition to supporting various streaming solutions.

The Sony solution

Sony was an ideal solution for the schools when looking at integrating technology into classrooms, thanks to its impressive range of Professional Displays designed to maximize audience engagement. Along with Sony’s accredited partner, Evercom AS, and the municipality of Bærum, a solution comprising 224 BRAVIA Professional Displays was designed and implemented at a total of 14 schools throughout the municipality, in classrooms designed to cater for up to 30 students.

The Sony solution featured 219 FWL-75W855C models, 4 FWL-55W805C models, and 1 FWL-65W855C model, which are all Full HD Colour LED Displays. The FWL-75W855C is a slim and energy-efficient display with 400 nits that was designed to enable simple integration thanks to its flexible mounting and versatile control options, while bringing to life all legacy visual communications capabilities within any given school. In addition, the solution allowed for automated and easy setup, meaning that Evercom AS could configure one screen, upload the required setup solution to a USB and insert the USB to all displays; this secured the exact same setup on all displays without having to configure each of them manually.

The FWL-75W855C BRAVIA Professional Displays were installed to run online for 17-18 hours a day, but for the municipality of Bærum the displays are approved for 24/7 usage.

Results to date

Working digitally has proved to be a different and fun way of working. Instead of being tied to their desks, the teachers can now walk around the classroom more than they previously could, interacting with students in a different way. The long-term aim for the municipality of Bærum, and the main reason for starting the project “Digital School Day,” is to educate students in a way that makes them digitally-equipped and technologically-competent to suit the evolving requirements of today’s workplaces.

“This is part of a larger project focusing on collaboration and cooperation, not only between teachers and pupils, but also between the students themselves”, says Christian Sørbye Larsen, Special advisor with the School administration in Bærum. “The user interface is key to achieving this. For teachers, technology has previously been an element of uncertainty, and they have been forced to make several backup plans in case the technology lets them down. The new LED Professional Displays are an important contribution to reduce the teachers’ need for backup plans, and for the teachers to have more trust in the technology.”

Why Sony was selected

Bærum municipality and the 14 participating schools needed an automated solution that could standardise and improve on the existing technology platforms across their teaching spaces. The large, elegant Displays give a better digital display area, and the automated and easy-to-connect solutions allow for a vastly reduced start up time. Sony’s solutions were chosen by accredited partner Evercom AS for their robustness and auto-switching capabilities, as well as for being cost-effective and offering good value to the municipality. In addition, it was important for Evercom AS as a partner to have a solution that was straightforward to set up. Sony’s automatic and flexible solution allowed Evercom AS to configure one display and copy the setup to all other displays, saving both time and resources.

Sony’s 75” BRAVIA Professional FULL HD Colour LED Displays are slim and energy-efficient, and are designed to bring all visual communication to life in a broad array of spaces from boardrooms and offices, to retail venues and schools. Also, the displays are easy to connect to tablets, fitting seamlessly into the Bærum schools’ approach to work completion and submission. 

“Sony was chosen mainly based on the price. The new displays require less maintenance and have low total ownership costs. This is where our benefits and cost savings are,” says Larsen in the municipality of Bærum.

“The education segment is one of our key areas of focus at Sony Professional and we are continuously working to bring products and solutions to the market that simplify and enhance the workday of students and teachers alike. We are very happy to work with an innovative and environmentally-focused customer like the municipality of Bærum”, says Marius Karthum, Channel Account Manager Norway at Sony Professional Solutions Europe.

Product list

• 219 x Sony FWL-75W855C
• 4x Sony FWL-55W805C
• 1x Sony FWL-65W855C

AV Integrator: Evercom AS