The IT solutions you need to succeed this year

Key points:

There is no shortage of devices on a school campus between students, faculty, and educators. Not only are there school-mandated devices, but the rise of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) linked to the school’s network has the potential to cause major strain on a school’s IT system, both from campus and at home.

In today’s digital age, one student alone might be using two or three different devices for their schoolwork – that’s more surfaces for security threats to creep in than ever before. Not only is personal device use on the rise, but since 2020, there has been a 19 percent average increase in the overall use of learning technologies.…Read More

How schools can take cybersecurity to the next level

In early March, 15 schools in the United Kingdom reported they were made incapable of delivering online learning for students after a cyberattack forced the education trust to shut down all systems to investigate whether the cybercriminals accessed the central network infrastructure. The increased reliance on e-learning has made schools around the world an even bigger target of opportunity than before. If the technology is taken down, education can come to a complete halt. Add to this the wide prevalence of bring your own device programs for e-learning and the access from insecure home networks, and you have a perfect storm for the sector and a huge target for criminals.

The problem has become so severe that the NCSC recently issued an alert to the UK Education sector after seeing a spike in targeting the sector, underlining the fact that threat actors are going after the education industry specifically, as well as it being the target of opportunity.

Schools already have challenges giving enough resources to cyber security in both funding and staff. The NCSC guidance underlines the importance of doing the basics, but that further recommends a defense in depth strategy. This obviously comes with a financial cost. It really is unacceptable that threat actors are targeting children’s education, and that funds must be diverted from front line-learning activities into preventing criminal elements from plying their trade.…Read More

Education needs to go back to school for cybersecurity

The education sector has not been immune to the digital revolution transforming businesses and organizations across the world. The year before the pandemic saw sky-high growth and adoption in education technology, with global edtech investments reaching €15.87 billion in 2019.

Many education institutions have their own bring your own device (BYOD) policies, while downloads of educational apps have risen by 130 percent over the past year.

Everything from laptops and mobile devices to interactive touchscreens and even virtual reality are becoming commonplace in schools districts, colleges, and universities.…Read More

Richardson Independent School District – Texas, USA

BARCO SOLUTION

  • wePresent

KEY BENEFITS

  • Improves student learning & drives engagement
  • Ease of use for teachers & stimulates interactive teaching
  • Supports different BYOD operating systems & perfectly integrates in the network

The Richardson Independent School District in Texas, USA, was not looking for just any wireless solution. They wanted one that would accommodate all users. This is a must in an age when Bring Your Own Device practices reign supreme and every classroom is inhabited by a mix of Google, Apple, Android and Microsoft devices. For Technology Project Manager, Terry Balch, finding such a solution was far more difficult than it should have been:…Read More

How we turned around our ability to support BYOD for now and for the future

Demographics:

Rio Rancho (NM) Public Schools is the state’s third-largest school district; it has 18,000 students and more than 2,000 employees across 19 schools.

Biggest challenge:

With reliance on mobility for K-12 curriculum increasing, the demand for wireless in our district has also increased. We not only have encouraged our faculty and staff to embrace BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), but we have also provided Chromebooks to all of our 18,000 students.

Due to these changes, we realized we needed to increase the number of access points (APs) we were deploying to one AP per classroom. That solved the device density challenge, but by multiplying our AP count from about 400 to nearly 1,700, we now needed to find a way to centralize and simplify our wireless configurations.…Read More

10 school solutions for mobile device management

Bring Your Own Device initiatives just got a whole lot easier for schools

school-device

Schools usually never do anything on a small scale, and that includes the recent boom in “bring your own device” (BYOD) initiatives. From smartphones to tablets and iPads, mobile device management (MDM) has never been more vital for a successful school BYOD program. However, choosing a mobile device management solution can be a daunting task, especially in light of already-strained school IT resources and limited administrator knowledge beyond what device to implement.

That’s why the editors of eSchool News have hand-picked 10 school solutions for mobile device management, based on scope of the solution, how well the vendor incorporates school-specific needs, and industry reputation.…Read More

Three key developments in school AV technology

BenQ’s ‘SmartEco’ technology automatically adjusts a projector’s lamp settings based on the ambient lighting and the nature of the content being displayed.

The “bring your own device” (BYOD) phenomenon has exploded in popularity among K-12 schools, as educators look for cost-effective ways to leverage technology in the classroom.

Developers of audio-visual products are responding to this trend as well, making it easier for students and instructors to collaborate and share their presentations wirelessly from a wide range of mobile devices.…Read More

Schools’ ed-tech budgets shrink as demand grows

More administrators are open to “bring your own device” policies, a new report says.

While educators and parents continue to report a growing need for technology use in education and learning, schools are struggling to meet today’s needs and tomorrow’s expectations, according to “From Chalkboards to Tablets: The Digital Conversion of the K-12 Classroom,” the latest report from the Speak Up 2012 survey, released on April 19.

Given the budget realities – with 74 percent of respondents reporting that they have smaller technology budgets than they had five years ago – administrators are re-thinking their opposition to the “bring your own device” approach and districts who are piloting such a program increased by 47 percent in just one year.…Read More

Ed-tech best practices: November/December 2012

Here are some of the ed-tech best practices featured in the November/December 2012 edition of eSchool News.

How to make “bring your own device” programs work for your schools, and how to assess your students’ reading skills without losing valuable instructional time to testing: These are among the best practices in educational technology use featured in the November/December 2012 edition of eSchool News.

The digital version of our Nov./Dec. issue is now available.…Read More

Tips and take-aways from a successful mobile learning program

Student engagement saw a boost from the mobile learning program. (Photo from http://www.smriders.net/Mobile_Learning)

Starting small might be the key to success when it comes to deploying a mobile learning initiative, according to two educators whose district has implemented a successful mobile program that now reaches 500 students.

“We felt that if it was something that was going to catch on, we wanted to be sure that we started small and that it was as group of people who wanted to work at this,” said Kyle Menchhofer, technology director for the St. Marys City Schools district in Ohio. “Starting small was a very strong and successful part of why we are where we are at this time.”…Read More