Urgent: Today’s students need a digitally fluent college website-here’s how

It hardly seems possible to get through an hour without using technology, let alone a day. We track our health with wearable wristbands, our smartphones are basically pocket-sized laptops capable of doing and finding what we need within seconds, and the majority of our communication channels have turned digital. Students can no longer remember the world before the technology revolution. Digital fluency isn’t optional for schools; it’s a must.

Across industries, companies are scrambling to keep up with the rapidly changing consumer tides — education isn’t immune to these changes. People are naturally gravitating toward businesses and schools whose brands speak to them in an innovative, clear way demonstrating the business understands the wants and needs of today’s students. Those who have held onto older ways of doing things feel the effects of change more than those who are listening and changing.

What do students want from schools? Better digital access. They want to be able to use their phones or tablets take care of what they need to complete from class assignments to managing their student financial aid.…Read More

3 reasons why tomorrow’s workforce needs 3D printing education today

Remember the original iMac G3 desktop computers with their sleek, translucent designs in a colorful collection? Likely you saw these computers in ads, store windows or even owned one yourself. Millennials might also recall seeing these systems introduced to classrooms during elementary school, and that’s because Apple made a massive push in penetrating the education market throughout the ‘90s by exposing millions of children to this product.

Though to a lesser scale and profile than Apple, there is a similar technology immersion taking place today with 3D printing education. Companies like Ultimaker and more are all working to bring 3D printers to classrooms across the country. This growing accessibility is due largely to open source formats that support collaboration along with more affordable, yet still professional-grade desktop options. High-quality 3D printers are no longer just massive bulky units with price tags in the tens of thousands. That’s why from primary to higher education, the benefits of getting 3D printing into the hands of students are numerous.

Below, let’s take a closer look at why.…Read More

Educators are hyped up about these two new technologies

A new survey reveals that an overwhelmingly large amount of educators–89 percent, to be exact–said they found value in ed tech such as augmented reality and virtual reality.

Thirty-one percent of those respondents said the technologies will change teaching and learning in the classroom as we know it.

The report, “Evaluation of Ed Tech: What Technology Means to Educators Across America,” also reveals that just 13 percent of educators gave their school or university an ‘A’ when asked to rank their available ed tech’s ability to improve the learning experience for students, according to a new study.…Read More

4 strategies that make moving to the cloud less beastly

Whether for functional need, budgetary alignment, or due to top-down pressure, all universities will move to the public cloud at some level. If an organization has less than, say, 50 terabytes of data to manage, it’s easy to move everything there. For those of you in this boat, you can stop reading this article and proceed directly to the cloud, and collect $200.

For those with hundreds of terabytes, even petabytes, of data – including most universities – this is challenging and unrealistic. The business value of public cloud infrastructure is desirable, but when there are such large volumes of data, it’s hard to get there. “Lift and shift” strategies to mimic on-site infrastructure in the cloud are not often viable when petabytes of data are involved, and many universities need to keep at least some data on the premises. Luckily the utilization of public and private infrastructure does not have to be an either/or decision.

…Read More

Nearly 75 percent of IoT projects are failing

Though forecasts indicate Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints will grow from 14.9 billion at the end of 2016 to more than 82 billion in 2025, a new study reveals that close to 75 percent of IoT projects are unsuccessful.

Despite the forward momentum predicted by global marketing firm IDC, a new Cisco study shows that 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept stage and only 26 percent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success. Even worse: a third of all completed projects were not considered a success.

“It’s not for lack of trying,” said Rowan Trollope, senior vice president and general manager, IoT and Applications, Cisco. “But there are plenty of things we can do to get more projects out of pilot and to complete success, and that’s what we’re here in London to do.”…Read More

6 inspiring must-see higher-ed TED Talks

Most everyone knows what TED Talks are. The talks are so popular that many cities, including colleges and universities, host their own TED conferences and education talks.

TED Talks range from inspiring to humorous and cautionary, but there’s something we can learn from each speaker’s experience.

In this article, we’ve gathered a handful of TED Talks with higher-ed relevance. From smart computers to what’s next for the U.S. economy and fostering healthy campus debate, the TED Talks offer a variety of widsom. Some are a couple years old, and others are brand new, but they all have one thing in common: they’ll get you thinking about higher education’s place in society, its future, and what learning truly means.…Read More

University IT: How to get the most out of your move to the cloud

The cloud’s raison d’être, regardless of the deployment model used, is its ability to deliver overall agility, deployment flexibility, and elasticity. Cloud priorities today include moving more workloads to the cloud, optimizing existing cloud utilization, leveraging innovation, and enabling multi-cloud deployments.

Why Universities are Cloud Unique

As universities deploy cloud infrastructures, they embrace efficiency techniques that have been developed and used by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to control their public cloud data center costs. They deploy efficiency models that increase data density and reduce footprint requirements, while dropping operating costs for power and cooling.…Read More

Does your campus have a strong video culture? Here’s why it should

A quiet revolution is gaining speed in colleges and universities worldwide.

No, people aren’t beating down the schools’ doors, but there is an important paradigm shift under way because educators and university leaders are embracing technology; more specifically, video.

A recent study from Wainhouse Research revealed the ability to capture lectures as video for student access is a key success factor in increased retention and graduation.…Read More

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