Although digital transformation has been well underway for years, 80 percent of public sector organizations still report being between the initial and developing digital maturity stages. While the pandemic accelerated the transformation, it also furthered the equality gap and brought about new challenges, including budget issues and staffing shortages. K-12 decision makers are discovering how reliable, scalable, and secure platforms through a single platform can be a game changer, saving time and money while pushing transformation forward to the benefit of students and educators.
Education IT leaders are familiar with many of the challenges of digital transformation, like budget and resource constraints and insufficient time for training; however, new and unique problems come with increased technology use. Frequent changes in users and demand, notably during the pandemic, have made it hard for IT departments to assess user needs accurately to create the most beneficial systems. On top of fluctuating users and ever-changing requirements, leaders are dealing with too many technology vendors, managing disparate solutions, and battling competing decision-making criteria and objectives, all of which impede K-12 digital progress. These are only a few of the major difficulties.
However, the challenges educators are encountering are no longer confined to their network issues but have become more far-reaching IT issues. Whereas pre-pandemic technology problems varied as much as the districts themselves and could be solved within the network, now all K-12 institutions are faced with large-scale technology integration to connect all students and educators, no matter who or where they are. There’s an art and science to scalability, which ensures, regardless of whether it’s a small, rural school district or a massive, urban one, that there are some common solutions and best practices to help advance digital transformation. It’s critical for district IT teams to focus on data management, continuous monitoring, digital platform management, IT security and vulnerability management, automation, and connectivity. These six factors have the most significant impact on a successful IT infrastructure.
Building a scalable infrastructure is vital to creating a successful network for students and educators. This starts with proactively monitoring network conditions and consolidating alerts based on criticality levels. Keeping abreast of real-time network issues and putting the right tools in the right hands to fix the problems efficiently saves time and ensures a more secure network for all. Technology also needs to be secure from malware and cyberattacks, issues the most advanced public sector organizations continue to combat daily. When devices, users, and permissions are managed through a singular platform, they’re robust and reliable.
While many school districts are still at the initial stages of their digital transformation, the movement is speeding along. Scalability in education is crucial for addressing ongoing and emerging issues impacting learning. Following best practices and doing what’s necessary to scale and secure the network helps students, educators, and parents find success.
To learn more about the art and science of scalability in education, click here.
