With the school year coming to a close, IT departments will be hard at work maintaining and improving for next year. One of the main culprits of a poor performing IT department at a K-12 school or district is the way in which mobile devices are used and the way in which the wireless network...
"3 Things to Consider Improving your School Wifi Network"Read more
1:1 and BYOD initiatives usually conger dreaded images of overflowing support queues for the IT department. With such programs becoming common place in K-12 education, the increase of users and devices bring with it various challenges. Some K-12 support teams are enlisting student help to cover the workload. As a result, the effort provides education...
"A Student-Run Help Desk for K-12"Read more
Image credit: Ed Tech Magazine eSchool News shared what a panel of CTOs and educators at ISTE 2016, one of the biggest education conferences in the country, determined how technologies are changing the role of these Chief Technology Officers in school districts: Blended Learning “Blended learning means flexible learning that caters to learning styles of students,” said...
"5 Things CTOs Say Are Changing Their Roles In Schools"Read more
Image Copyright: ximagination / 123RF Stock Photo Millions of students and teachers are preparing to begin another school year in the coming weeks. Your IT team is busy implementing and updating new technologies that enhance the student’s experience. Is your next implementation on this list? Alan Joch, in a EdTech Magazine article, shares 5 classroom tech priorities for...
"Top 5 Tech Priorities for the 2016-17 School Year"Read more
Excerpts from an edtechmagazine.com article: Financial constrains in today’s school districts have found many cutting essential budgets to facilities and IT. In the name of efficiency many have seen decisions that could potentially cause even greater financial loss in the future: Shutting off uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) for critical IT equipment, leaving systems susceptible to loss or...
"4 Steps to Reducing Costs in your K-12 IT Environment"Read more
Excerpts from a CIO.com article by Chris Doig Though there are many reasons not to change enterprise software, possibly the biggest is inertia. If it isn’t broken, why fix it? The cost of not replacing old software must be estimated to answer the above question, especially for systems that have been in place for more...
"Not Upgrading Enterprise Software Could Cost You"Read more
Image: Kevin Marks/Flickr Taken from the Education Week article “State K-12 Cybersecurity Audit Finds Missouri District Unprepared” “It is a very comprehensive report,” said Doug Levin, the president of EdTech Strategies LLC, a consulting group. “Clearly the auditor has developed a framework for best practices.” While Levin applauded the interest taken by the state auditor, he argued...
"K-12 Cybersecurity Audit"Read more
CoSN just made available their 4th Annual K-12 IT Leadership Survey Report. The survey was conducted in January of 2016 and distributed to U.S. school technology leaders. Top 10 Key Findings from the 2016 K-12 IT Leadership Survey Report: 1. Broadband and network capacity is the top priority for IT leaders, replacing assessment readiness (which for the...
"Top 10 K-12 IT Leadership Findings of 2016"Read more
IMAGE CREDIT: (DAVID JOLES/STARTRIBUNE) Excerpts from an The Journal.com article School buses used to serve one purpose: getting students to and from school. But driven by a mandate to provide Internet connectivity to all students, some creative districts have deployed mobile wireless technology to transform their buses into moving WiFi zones, stationary hotspots or both....
"WiFi Hotspots on School Buses for 24/7 Web Access"Read more
Being called “almost as big a deal as when we went from wireline to wireless”, software-defined wide area networks are the next biggest networking trend being adopted by schools. According to an Ed Tech Magazine article, Fresno Unified School District has firm plans to deploy SD-WANs along with many others in the future. A recently produced market...
"SD-WAN for Schools"Read more
