Webinar

Student Created Digital Content for Immersive Campus Touring

Located in Honolulu, Hawaii, Punahou School is one of the country’s largest independent schools with an enrollment of more than 3,700 students. Founded in 1841, the school is known for offering its students innovative and reimagined learning spaces utilizing technology and cutting-edge tools and facilities. Their mission is to shape students into capable, educated, and giving members of society prepared for the careers of the future.

THE CHALLENGE

As a K-12 educational institution, everything that Punahou School does is centered around learning outcomes. Several years ago, the school was short-staffed and looking for ways to streamline its outdoor education and archival departments. The school was investigating ways to connect students to content and promote continuous learning.

THE SOLUTION

Punahou School decided to implement Engage by Cell’s mobile platform consisting of a mobile web app and text messaging service.

The mobile web app would provide a portal for the school’s historical campus tours, and the text messaging platform would be used to inform and engage with alumni. After seeing the benefits of using this new technology, the school administration decided to train the students on how to research, edit, and upload content to the web app and texting platform. This provided an additional educational opportunity for students within existing coursework.

Benefits of the new tools included:

Easy accessibility of information – no app downloads or logins were required.
Provided a convenient and meaningful self-guided campus tour for visitors.
Interactive scavenger hunts encourage exploration.
Content updates could easily be done by students, offering a hands-on educational opportunity.
Historical campus tours educated students and the community.
Content included text, images, surveys, quizzes, videos, links to campus maps, and more.
Text messaging was used to communicate with alumni about upcoming events.

OUTCOMES

The Punahou School was able to address staffing challenges, cutting down on resources needed for in-person tours of their 76.2 acre campus. Additionally, the web app allowed the school to reduce its printed maps and brochures, aligning with sustainability goals. As a student-facilitated app, Punahou students are learning how to be effective writers. They are taught how to write appealing content for a common audience and to curate images and art to support their articles and stories. Not only are students building their writing, collaboration, and technical skills, they are also building confidence in their abilities.

Web app content is accessed using QR codes provided by staff. The students particularly enjoyed the storytelling option of the historical campus tours. New content is created continuously, keeping students engaged in the learning process. Real-time analytics provide valuable feedback for administrators, telling the engagement story.

“We want the user experience to be authentic, and we want to meet the needs that our audience has, so the data has been able to guide us into topics that we never thought people were interested in.”
Kylee Mar
Punahou School Archivist

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THE ENGAGE BY CELL EFFECT

Thanks to Engage by Cell’s mobile technology and Punahou School’s initiative, students are given the opportunity to learn hands-on technical and writing skills. With Engage by Cell’s mobile web apps and text messaging tools, the school continues its mission to educate students and prepare them for creative and collaborative jobs in the future.