the main points:
Raise your hand if your school is one hundred percent ready for whatever technological innovations and accreditations will come over the next three to five years. This means you know exactly what technology will best benefit your students and teachers, you know exactly how much it will cost to upgrade, and you know exactly how to update your technology without any interoperability or other issues.
If we were in a room right now, some people's hands would already be raised. Are you one of the few, or do you need to know what they know? If the latter, let's take a look at how to prepare for emerging trends in education and the future of technology in education.
We can all agree that technology is indispensable
While everyone has their own opinions about technology, we can all agree that technology and educational technology resources are not going anywhere. They have a place in our schools and many school goals cannot be achieved without them. Technology in the classroom helps enrich lesson plans, and an important point is that students need to be familiar with and comfortable with technology if they want to succeed after school. Technology is also used to communicate with parents, keep schools safe, relieve staff and administrator responsibilities, control building systems, and much more.
That's why embracing and preparing for new innovations in education – and for the future of technology in education – is not a simple process. It involves much more than simply picking up the latest mobile device and downloading an educational app or two. There are thousands of educational technology options, as well as other applications, IoT devices, and infrastructure to consider.
For example, now that we have overcome bottlenecks in the supply chain, technology adoption can happen faster. However, before any change is made to the school network, IT must be able to answer some important questions. If a school wants to move to WiFi 6E, now that the technology is more readily available, the IT department will need to know:
- Does the network design need to change? Will there be a need to move access points (APs) at all to support the 6GHz band, which provides different coverage than the 2.4 and 5GHz bands?
- Do we have the ability to monitor three frequency bands without stopping?
- Can interoperability and other issues be identified and resolved in real time?
- What departments or floors in the school would benefit most from an upgrade? What are the current and long-term usage trends?
Ultimately, what schools need is visibility into current and future technology needs.
What is technology the future of education? Automated Wi-Fi monitoring is a more integrated tool than ever before
With so many different needs relying on technology, the technology itself and both the wired and Wi-Fi networks that rely on it are critical to schools across the country. Keeping these networks in an optimized state, and preparing them to always be secure in the future, are tasks only possible through automated Wi-Fi monitoring. These are the solutions that allow people to “raise their hand” when we asked our opening question. this is the reason.
Automated Wi-Fi monitoring provides:
- 24/7 analysis of the entire network environment
- Proactive alerts at the first sign of a potential problem
- Automatic recommendations to quickly solve the problem
- Historical analyzes to identify long-term performance and behavior trends, and forecast future needs
- Identify the device
Replicating these deliverables without an automated solution would require an IT team of thousands that can monitor every device and application 24/7 and analyze thousands of data packets every second. this is not possible.
Why are these capabilities needed? Because schools that want to improve their current networks and prepare affordably for the future of technology in education need networks completely free of ambiguity and user experience issues. They need:
- Complete, real-time visibility into the performance and security of every device connected to your Wi-Fi network (provided with 24/7 analytics)
- Ability to resolve issues before user experience is affected, significantly reducing the number of issues on the network (provided with proactive alerts and automated recommendations)
- Advance knowledge of how network usage has changed over the past month or year (provided with historical analytics)
- Insight into what the network needs to remain optimized into the future (provided with historical analytics)
- Details about each device's capabilities so schools can effectively budget for network-level upgrades, such as moving to Wi-Fi 6E (with device recognition)
It's the insights that matter, not just data or alerts. Automatic Wi-Fi monitoring should make it easier for IT pros to work smarter, not harder.
The visibility these solutions provide is also an important factor in ensuring the security of school networks. As virtual learning grows, schools face the complexity of having more devices on the network and more opportunities for security challenges. The best way to prevent attacks and quickly recover from attempted attacks is to use a solution that automatically alerts IT to suspicious activity and suspicious devices, provides recommendations for resolving security issues, and proactively monitors wired and Wi-Fi networks. With automated monitoring solutions, schools have smart eyes monitoring the network 24/7.
To be a pioneer in the future of technology in education
Every school faces unique technology challenges and requirements. Leading the innovative adoption of technology means much more than just purchasing the latest hardware or updating to the latest Wi-Fi standards. It means understanding the role of technology in the future of education. It means understanding users' needs and exceeding their expectations at all times. Learn how to search and understand your network like never before with automatic Wi-Fi monitoring, and the future will be in your hands.
