Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal have a recent article on the virtues of EdTech, including the three steps you need to take to make it happen in a school:
- Evaluate your internet service and bandwidth
Fiber is a proven winner for school networks. While many technologies have the potential to meet growing demand for bandwidth, fiber is a clear leader for several reasons. Fiber is highly secure and can easily scale to speeds of 100 Gbps or more.
As more edtech devices proliferate on networks and digital learning continues to advance, demand is growing for bandwidth and speed. Fiber is designed to be future-proof and suited for current and future needs.
- Shore up your cybersecurity strategy
Growing your IT network and tech capabilities is a net positive, but introducing more devices inherently comes with risks. It’s a numbers game. The more connected devices you have, the more points of entry there are on a network. If your infrastructure is not properly secured, it’s vulnerable to hacking, phishing, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and other emerging threats.
- Be aware of assistance programs such as E-Rate
Broadband services represent a large share of the technology budget for many districts, making the best available service options — fiber, for example — seem out of reach. The reality is, access to scalable, redundant or symmetrical speed fiber networks is more possible and cost-effective than ever. The federal E-Rate program is a big part of making the best in broadband more affordable.
Blandin on Broadband 