Designing Technology for Effective and Efficient Schools
When you think broadly of technology, what does it look like for your school system? How are you maximizing student safety, data security, and learning? How are you planning for ever-increasing technology needs?
This month in the Education Transformation Corner, we’re focusing on designing technology for effective and efficient schools. We want to help you maximize the potential of every student in your system. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and can still be accomplished even in an environment of limited resources. In fact, it can be as simple as 1…2…3!
1) Connect your school: It all starts with a basic foundation – power, Internet connectivity, and a secure and well-designed WiFi network. Now that you have the means for your staff and students to move freely, what does the physical learning space look like? How is the spatial lighting for the use of screens? Where do students prefer to do their work? Have reduced resources? Great! Sugata Mitra, Professor of Education Technology and TED Prize winner has found that a reduction in resources brings increased cooperation. Let children share devices – just make sure to always keeps these devices charged and secure!
2) Lay the Groundwork: Now that you’re connected and have your basic foundation, it’s time to pilot your devices. Start by investing in a small set for sharing. Also, consider a BYOD model to help expand. Next, introduce management for school wide WiFi and mobile technology use. Microsoft Active Directory provides a single point where you can manage your user accounts, registered devices, applications, and servers.
3) Transformation: Transformation is based on introducing cloud-based services, automating manual processes, and providing powerful learning, social, and collaboration software with self-service capabilities for students and staff – and don’t worry – we have many resources to simplify and help you through!
Think you’re ready to maximize potential through technology? Great! Here are some additional resources for you to explore:
• The Ten Critical Components of School Transformation
• A Platform for Learning Transformation
• Building an IT Platform in a Limited-Resource Setting
• Building an IT Platform for Learning Transformation
Have you heard about our Canadian Executive Learning Series? Join us in a series of webinars for the opportunity to learn from and interact with experts in the field! Up next:
Executive Learning Series | Leveraging IoT for Facilities and Energy Management
March 28, 2017
12:00 – 1:00PM EST
This session, presented with the team at Iconics, will explore how the Internet of Things is enabling new fault detection, diagnostics, and analysis capabilities. Education customers around the world are benefitting from these tools and realizing significant reductions in their energy consumption, while also enabling better labour force optimization.
Want to join us? Email execlearningseries@microsoft.com.
