Key points:
There is no shortage of devices on the school campus among students, teachers and educators. Not only are there school-mandated devices, but the rise of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) tied to the school network has the potential to cause significant strain on a school's IT system, both from the campus as at home.
In today's digital age, a single student may be using two or three different devices for their schoolwork; That represents more surfaces than ever for security threats to be introduced. Not only is the use of personal devices increasing, but since 2020 there has been atechnology-is-shaping-learning-in-higher-education”> technology-is-shaping-learning-in-higher-education” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>19 percent average increase in the general use of learning technologies.
As teachers and students alike look to implement the latest technology to enhance lessons and streamline learning, there is a lot to learn when it comes to safely introducing new technologies into the classroom.
IT 101: Self-Service and Remote Support Procedures
No matter the size of an educational institution, IT departments are often stretched thin while working on a limited budget. For small technology teams, it is essential to ensure that as many people as possible can help manage business-critical infrastructure, such as phone systems, internet connectivity, and remote educational tools, to minimize downtime and bad experiences. of the users. Setting up a self-service tool can significantly streamline the maintenance of these systems, allowing school staff to troubleshoot smaller issues without consuming IT team time and resources.
Remote support and management solutions also play a critical role in keeping technologies running smoothly, especially for problems that are too complex for typical teachers to solve on their own. With it, IT teams can remotely view the device or software that is having problems, investigate the problem and guide staff through the solution or take control and fix the problem remotely, all from any location. This saves valuable time and resources, allowing teams to solve problems for teachers and students in the classroom, at home, or anywhere else.
Regularly update your IT plans and solutions
The key to any successful classroom is ensuring that the curriculum is kept as up-to-date and relevant as possible. This is also true for IT teams. Students regularly use virtual collaboration tools, online chat rooms, machine-powered learning assistants, and more recently, ai-powered tools in and out of the classroom.technology-is-shaping-learning-in-higher-education”>
Emerging technologies require teachers, students, and IT teams to develop new skills. IT teams must collaborate with educators to understand what technologies teachers want to implement in the classroom and ensure that these technologies are implemented and used correctly. A great way to foster that collaboration is to host regular meetings that outline recent technology updates, offer onboarding sessions, and provide a platform to answer questions that can help with initial adoption issues.
While the COVID-induced era of learning from home accelerated the adoption of technologies used for remote learning, teachers and students in classrooms or wherever learning takes place still face challenges in adopting new technologies. By offering remote support tool options for educators, IT teams can bridge the gaps between classroom and technology. With a plethora of remote support tools available, IT departments should look for solutions that are simple and easy to use so that non-technical teachers or students can receive assistance. Adopting support solutions that offer next-generation security and effective troubleshooting functionality is vital to streamlining the problem resolution process.
A lesson in crisis planning
Today, it is difficult to keep up with the constant influx of new devices and technologies that take advantage of educational systems. Rapid changes in the environment increase security and privacy risk. In fact, “the educational services industry (recently experienced) a dramatic increase in ransomware attackswhich represents more than 30 percent of the violations.”
The rise in cyberattacks in the education sector demonstrates why school districts, higher institutions, and IT leaders must take the lead in cybersecurity crisis planning, outlining how to identify, respond to, and recover from cybersecurity incidents. .
To reduce risk, schools should focus on choosing products with proven built-in security measures, such as 256-bit AES encryption, multi-factor authentication, and zero trust network access, allowing students and staff to connect securely. with multiple platforms and devices. , while proactively protecting against threats.
Education decision makers should also invest in remote IT management tools that are easy to implement, use, update and manage. These tools will not only reduce costs and improve the efficiency of IT teams, but will also be essential when responding to and recovering from a cybersecurity incident if the need arises.
It is an exciting time for the education sector as emerging technologies open up a realm of opportunity for teachers and students alike. With the IT security measures and best practices implemented above, schools can reap the benefits of these tools while keeping their students and teachers safe from cyber attacks.
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