Cloud technology is becoming a necessity throughout all the global sectors of today’s world. Education is preparing to benefit vastly from a transition into cloud computing, as both teachers and students await the improvements in their productivity, instruction and learning that this technology can offer.
Governments and administrations are now backing the global drive for digital transformation in educational environments, as they realise the need for cloud computing in schools, universities and other online learning platforms. In 2019, the British government published a series of guidelines on how to move school operations onto the cloud and how to increase their current exposure to cloud computing. This initiative highlights the importance of a well-needed digital shift towards cloud computing across the country’s education system.
Here, Kyocera considers the benefits of cloud computing, presenting five
of the biggest advantages for education providers:
1. Reduction of costs
One of the big advantages that schools will notice once they integrate cloud technology is a considerable reduction in overall financial costs. Instead of having to spend money on expensive workbooks and textbooks, both teachers and students will have all the content they need online. Using cloud technology proves cheaper than investing in physical paper books in the medium term.
Similarly, cloud computing eliminates the enormous paper costs that schools face as cloud-based content is compatible and accessible via mobile, tablets or laptops. Not only is this good for educational institutions financially, but it also contributes massively to minimising their carbon footprint.
2. Promote learning with more resources
Through cloud computing, schools are able to transfer, create and edit more content in online format than ever before. This translates into more universal and complete access to educational resources.
This also promotes learning, as some pupils will find it easier and more appealing to enrol in educational programs, courses and even university degrees when these are offered online. Having all their necessary educational content a few clicks away will permit future students to study whenever they so choose, or whenever they are able to.
3. Increase the quality of available content
Cloud technology enables education providers to update and modify any content that needs to be edited, to ensure that all their teaching resources stored in the cloud are up-to-date and of high quality.
This will have a significant impact on learning. The textbooks that were traditionally used in the education sector were not updated very frequently. As a result, the schools that relied on them would sometimes end up using outdated resources while they waited for new editions to be published. With the cloud, this is no longer an issue.
4. Innovate to improve teaching methods
Today’s ongoing technological advances present new opportunities for teachers to innovate and be more creative in the way they plan and deliver their lessons to students.
Using cloud content is a great way to encourage electronic and interactive learning among younger students, who will take the lead in tomorrow’s digital world. Multimedia learning is also proven to be enthralling and stimulating for students, making classes more enjoyable and pleasant all around.
5. Save teachers time
A shift towards digital content has proven to be timesaving for education providers. The flexibility offered by online cloud technology allows teachers to prepare lesson plans at their time and place of desire.
Through one single platform, teachers’ collaboration is also made easier. Education providers can instantly share ideas and resources at any given time.
All in all, the global education sector's necessary digital tranformation begins with the use of cloud computing. It's easy to see how much every person involved in education stand to gain from a transition into digitalisation. Cloud computing envisions a solution to the education sector's present and future challenges, by offering a modern and simple way to digitally access, share, update, manage and download important educational content. Through this approach, not only can organisations reduce their financial burdens, but students can also benefit from a whole new world of resources and efficency which improve their learning experience and student satisfaction.
