How a classic information display was digitized using a digital information board: Field report from the daycare center “Die wilden Füchse” in Cologne
What were your reasons for digitizing the classic information board?
Our facility is an inclusive daycare center and we have been a certified family center since 2008.
In addition to notices on organizational matters relating to the daycare centre, we also provide information on a wide range of further training and events offered by the family center. To visualize this information, we used the classic paper flyer or, in some cases, our Facebook website.
By deciding to make the information available digitally, we are not only protecting the environment, but also ensuring that the information reaches the recipient quickly and up to date. During the coronavirus pandemic in particular, we realized that it is very important to pass on information quickly. The gekartel in-house app, which we are already looking forward to releasing, will also play a key role in ensuring prompt communication.
We also aim to introduce our children to digital media at an early age and sensitize them to responsible use. The interactivity of the visualization in particular helps to convey information in a more entertaining and tangible way. This can be expected of us, especially as an educational institution.
What convinced you to entrust gekartel AG with the implementation of the project and how do you rate the planning and implementation of the project by gekartel AG?
After several unsuccessful inquiries to various providers of digital solutions, gekartel AG immediately signaled its interest in implementing this forward-looking project. In the first preliminary discussion, it became clear that the “digital house board” concept could also be used for our needs. gekartel AG is the market leader in this field in Germany and we benefited from their many years of experience throughout the course of the project.
Together, we analyzed the needs of our daycare center and the family center, weighed up ideas and visions for their feasibility and examined the technical and installation options. After just a short time, we received the first creative layout drafts, which led to a wonderful result after fine-tuning.
The project coordinator from gekartel AG supervised the installation and commissioning of our in-house board on site, as well as the training that enabled us, the editors and administrators, to update the digital information system independently in future.
The all-round carefree package offered by gekartel AG also includes long-term service support for our institution, which includes solutions to any user, software or hardware problems.
In summary, we would like to emphasize the very friendly, creative, committed and reliable project work of the gekartel team.
What was your experience of financing the project?
In general, it is always a challenge to get the various institutions enthusiastic about investments and to get them approved.
For our project, we were able to rely on the financial support of our sponsor, “Bürgerschaftshaus e.V.”, and also received federal funding from the “Digitalization in Kitas” project. In other circumstances, we could have imagined some kind of crowdfunding or fundraising campaign via parents.
When deciding to support the project financially, our sponsor also had in mind that the digitalization of our information offering would also result in significant cost savings (e.g. layout, typesetting, printing and distribution costs), which means that the investment of a few thousand euros in the digital house board will soon pay for itself.
What development potential do you see for the digital notice board as a replacement for the conventional bulletin board?
We are very much looking forward to the development of the gekartel house board app. Interested parents can use this app to read all digitally published content promptly, conveniently and from any location. In direct comparison to our occasional Facebook entries, the Haustafel app allows information to be published in a non-public area for mobile use.
We still see a good solution approach, which we may also pursue further, in the fact that additional monitors can be integrated into the digital information system. What is interesting for us here is that the content displayed on each monitor can be identical or different and the location of the individual monitors does not matter.
Incidentally, after the successful commissioning of the in-house notice board in our daycare centre, synergies arose at short notice in the form that the management of the connected family centre/ community centre was now also interested in a digitalized notice board, especially as the gekartel concept of the classic “digital in-house notice board” also provides for the recording and evaluation of janitor services.
