The ROI of going CLOUD for K-12 Schools launching MLearning Technology

When I go to Education Technology conferences and workshops, I am listening to attendees more than I am talking about our product. It’s the best way to find out what are the real-time concerns of school CTO’s and administrators. You can add teachers to that list too. At an FETC conference I attended a few weeks ago in Orlando, I met a lot of teachers who are serving on the front line for their schools in gathering information about the technology associated with mobile learning.

The conference featured a mixture of thought leaders, vendors, CTO’s, and teachers sharing information. Over and over, I kept hearing the words K-12 cloud. Cloud storage is the natural way to increase efficiency and decrease the physical footprint of mobile learning infrastructure. Not to mention the cost savings going the cloud can bring.

Here is a top five list for why K-12 Administrators, School Boards, and CTO’s should look to the cloud, as they look to launch mobile learning in their schools.

1. Hardware. Launching mLearning programs requires an increase infrastructure to accommodate the huge increase in devices that need to be managed. Going to the cloud reduces equipment on the ground and creates a centralized data center.

2. Personnel. Managing and tracking devices in mLearning programs can be labor intensive. Adding physical hardware also adds to IT maintenance. Going to the cloud reduces the personnel footprint needed to manage mobile learning.

3. Convenience. Try tracking down the dozens of questions that come up daily when managing mobile learning IT and devices. Better yet, don’t. Cloud services allow administrators, CTO’s, and faculty to access the data themselves with a few keystrokes.

4. Budget. Reductions in hardware and personnel that result from Cloud migration bring significant ROI.

5. Storage and Security. K-12 schools manage a lot of sensitive information. Storing it in the cloud provides security, back-up, and redundancy that cannot be achieved with a paper trail.

Wireless Campus Manager™ uses the Cloud as a part of our bundled technology solution for K-12 schools. It’s an integral part of streamlining process and an increasing number of schools agree. I read an interesting post this week with stats on ROI and adoption rate of K-12 cloud on the Center for Digital Education website.

Check it out. http://www.centerdigitaled.com/news/Educator-Cloud-Adoption.html