Curriculum, learning and teaching
Head in the cloud? Saqib Awan has some suggestions for schools
User friendly data access Schools are certainly maturing in their approach to technology. Many are no longer content with using it only for functionality, such as storing student data, dealing with finance, and managing teaching resources. An increasing number are also enabling their community (not only teachers and administrators, but students and parents too) to interact with the school through technology. Many forward-thinking international schools have user-friendly, multi-language platforms that mirror the kind of interfaces we’ve become used to in the typical online interaction of our daily lives. But to ensure that students and parents can access this wherever they may be, on any device, and to ensure full access to everyone in a large school or school group when demand is extensive, a cloud-based interface is a necessity. Once parents know that there are schools that can offer them extensive, easy access to their child’s learning progress, attendance and behaviour whenever they want it, many will seek out those that do. Once students know that schools can offer them access to schoolwork, resources, feedback, progress
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analysis and even lessons, wherever and whenever they want, they’ll consider a school using more traditional methods as possibly limiting their potential for success. Perhaps most important are the benefits for teachers. Having instant access to data that has been automatically analysed to assess each individual student’s progress helps teachers to identify areas for intervention to improve performance and support learning where needed. Rather than spending time analysing the data, teachers spend more time acting on it. Once teachers know of schools that enable tracking and assessment of students through a single, online, teacher-friendly platform, they will look for such a resource wherever they go. In the competitive world of international schools, where choice for parents, students and teachers in many cities is extensive, providing the best possible interaction and full accessibility to ensure outstanding education for every student is a convincing, if not essential, selling point. Recognising cloud-based solutions Cloud-based schools don’t have to manage software updates and server maintenance. They don’t need to worry about upgrade shut-downs, band-width limitations, or the competencies and reliability of their local IT support – all of which can, and do, compromise data security and impact functionality. True cloud school management solutions have a number of common characteristics: • They are not adaptions of former server-based models; they have been designed and built from the ground up, exclusively for the cloud. • They provide a complete maintenance-free solution for data storage, back-up and recovery, including software as a service (SAAS) provision. This means that system upgrades, patches, and updates all happen automatically and when necessary. • They are elastic. True cloud solutions will be able to flex to accommodate peak or increasing demand. They will scale automatically and accommodate future needs without having to know what the future requires (just think where we’ve come in the past ten years of technology use). • Rather than accessing through a portal connected to a server, cloud solutions give users access to data wherever they are, even with low bandwidth, and without interference from updates or server restrictions. • True cloud solutions provide a level of data security superseding all other data storage options and can manage any size of data need a school or school group could ever have. Saqib Awan is Chief Product Officer at WCBS (www. wcbs.co.uk). Email: Saqib.Awan@wcbs.co.uk
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A report published by ISC Research at the beginning of 2018 on management systems in international schools highlighted a movement towards cloud-based data management. According to the report, while over a third of international schools are now proponents of the cloud, many schools still shy away from storing school data this way. Though the report identified that very few international schools today have major issues with internet connectivity, more than a quarter of schools believed there was no need for their data management to be cloud-based. Most schools that prefer to stick with their server do so because of not trusting a move into unknown territory, not wishing to face change, or not knowing the benefits that change will bring. But relying on traditional methods of data storage not only exposes school data to greater security risk; it also limits interaction and data access for the entire school community at a time when online accessibility to data and information is becoming the norm. Many of us choose to manage numerous aspects of our lives today through online platforms; finances, utilities, work and social life. Within a decade, what is currently a preference will become an expectation, providing freedom of access wherever we are and whenever we want it. Such freedom is only possible, in a secure way, because of the cloud. Without it, we are dependent on a portal connected to a server which inevitably limits our access due to security updates and system demand, lack of band-width and functionality. The information we want and data we need are becoming increasingly available through seamless, intuitive, secure interfaces, and soon we’ll require this delivery in everything we do. Today’s e-generation is accustomed to instant access and indeed expects it; their parents almost as much. So why would any school restrict its chance to be as interactive as it can be with these, its most important customers?
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