Even before parents filled their kids' backpacks with pencils, paper and favorite sandwiches in preparation for the return of in-person learning, K-12 CIOs were busy working in the background to equip their districts with the technologies necessary for success this school year—and far beyond.
Like kindergartners, technology won't stand still. But as leaders of your districts' IT strategies, you can ensure current investments deliver value today and form the foundation that helps meet tomorrow's opportunities and challenges.
One consistent hurdle for most, if not all, districts is funding. During the pandemic, as districts heavily invested in technologies like cloud computing and virtual educational tools, state and federal agencies increased funds. The U.S. federal government gave about $483 billion for K-12 in fiscal 2021, a year-over-year increase of 12.3%, according to the State Expenditure Report from the National Association of State Budget Officers. These funds are available until 2024 or exhausted, although districts do have access to other sources.
The latest funds can be used to future-proof districts and create connected classrooms, which deliver a better, safer and more flexible learning environment. Creating connected classrooms with cloud-based networks and applications is a trend that began many years ago and continues to snowball as the benefits accrue. These benefits include agility and flexibility, reduced management overhead and costs, lower total cost of ownership and enhanced security and visibility.
Districts are further leveraging cloud infrastructure and IoT to support additional uses.
Connecting spaces
With cloud as the backbone, IT leaders are adding a different kind of intelligence to areas like classrooms, playgrounds, cafeterias and parking lots. They're creating smart spaces such as connected classrooms by applying both IoT and IT. They're using networks and sensors to collect data from places and things to create safe, healthy and sustainable environments that enhance the student, teacher and administrator experience—and can be built upon as requirements change within the district or school.
Connected classrooms help resolve bandwidth issues—an increasing problem as reliance on internet usage grows. With a strong, reliable connection that delivers increased bandwidth, each school's broadband easily handles multiple devices like teachers' in-room video-conferencing setups, remote and on-site students, administrators' PCs and connected IoT devices.
But more power and more bandwidth doesn't mean more management woes. With a cloud-based dashboard, administrators can log on wherever and however they wish and easily access the network.
As a result, educators can use computer-based video-conferencing technology to deliver the same teaching experience to students, regardless of their location, without worrying about internet crashes or lagging. With an added layer of accessibility, the system can also automatically record sessions and make them available in multiple languages with closed captions.
Safe and seen
Unlike traditional video surveillance systems that need manual, on-site updates and deliver often-grainy results that can take hours of eye-draining viewing, cloud-managed smart camera systems are easily deployed and even easier to manage. In many instances, maintenance staff deploy the cameras and IT or authorized administrators can review easily identified footage of interest from their device, wherever they want.
At East Stroudsburg Area School District in Pennsylvania, students, faculty and staff felt more secure after it deployed more than 1,000 cloud-managed smart cameras across its ten schools, six non-instructional facilities, and two stadiums. Its prior system frequently broke down, requiring on-site maintenance—a process that meant cameras were often not working when vandalism or other incidents occurred.
Beyond physical security, East Stroudsburg's smart-space investment saved tens of thousands of dollars by pinpointing inaccuracies in worker's compensation claims. With easy access to crisp footage, it became simpler to see what occurred in any given situation, such as an alleged accident or theft.
With cloud-managed security solutions, you can also implement compliance and safety measures for contact tracing and occupancy detection to meet capacity limits.
Securing the network
Protecting data and networks against cyberattacks is an ongoing concern across industries, especially those like K-12 that are viewed as attractive to cybercriminals.
By automating and streamlining processes like software updates and patching, you remove some of the most frequent attack vectors and provide IT staff with more time to accomplish tasks that add value to the district and school.
Using VPNs for secure access does not have to take days.
JeffCo Public Schools in Colorado expanded its VPN access from 200 connections to 5,000 in mere hours after it switched to virtual learning in 2020. The SD-WAN supported rapid scale-up and featured built-in security, management, and analytics.
Only the beginning
Numerous districts are now building on what they started with the cloud. Having poured the foundation, they are pursuing the educational and administrative opportunities or challenges they wish to address—whether they are budgetary, security, educational, or other.
Students' backpacks are full yet again. For this school year and beyond, District IT teams are equipped with tool kits of IoT and technology that create more connected classrooms and power the best learning experiences for all.
