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1 © 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
International Educators See “Major Role” for Technology Ahead Cisco Reviews International Education Survey Findings
The majority of education officials across the world believe that technology can play a major role in improving student engagement and preparing the workforce of the future. This finding was established during a worldwide education survey sponsored by Cisco and conducted by Clarus Research Group, a Washington D.C. based research and analysis company.
Throughout the examination, Clarus Research Group interviewed 1,100 education administrators and IT decision-makers from 15 countries within five continents. Half of the respondents were schools (K-12 in U.S.) educators and IT teams, and the other half held similar positions in higher education community and vocational colleges, universities, and for-profit schools. The respondents represented the following countries: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
To ensure a high degree of accuracy, all interviews were conducted via telephone. The top-line findings in the five key survey categories are presented in this paper:
• Education & Learning Issues
• Administrative & Strategic Issues
• Technology Issues
• Planned Technology Investments
• Views on Technology Vendors
Contents
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Cisco International Education Survey, Executive Summary
Global Region/ Education Category United States Latin America Mid-East/Africa Europe Asia-Paci!c
Teaching and Learning Issues
Increasing Student
Performance
Preparing Students for a
Global Economy
Attendance and Employability Remediation Increasing Student
Performance
Administrative and Strategic Issues
Retaining Good Students New Technology Communications Funding Communications
Technology Issues
Equipping Classrooms
with Advanced Technological
Equipment
Reducing Administrative
ExpensesNetwork Security
Enabling Student and Faculty
Communication
Preventing Internet Abuse
Most Important Qualities -Technology Company
Providing Products at Good
Value for Price
Innovation and Creativity
Thought Leadership,
Creativity and Innovation
Providing Products at
Good Value for Price
E!cient and Timely
Performance
Likelihood of InvestmentsWireless Services
and Energy E!ciency
Wireless and Video Services
Wireless Services and Interactive Whiteboard/Hand-held
Devices
Wireless Services
and Energy E!ciency
Interactive Whiteboard/Hand-held Devices, and Physical Security/
Noti"cation Services
Survey Overview
Why did Cisco conduct such an extensive and comprehensive analysis on U.S. and global education?Cisco understands and is committed to education. Cisco is an educator as well as a vendor. We have provided thought leadership on education transformation, our corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, including our investment in Cisco Networking Academy, and our partnerships and technologies designed specifically for this market. We understand how to help schools, colleges, and universities prepare for the future, and prepare their students for the future as well.
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Through the survey, we worked to:1. Gain a better understanding of the education market:
a. Pinpoint where the market is heading
b. Understand the particular trends developing in the market and their implications
c. See which Cisco solutions are most valuable and useful to educators
2. Acquire a larger perspective of the challenges, concerns, and obstacles that administrators face while striving to update technology in their institutions
3. Attain a greater comprehension of the learning aspects that most concern educators when it comes to implementing technology
Top Education and Learning Issues
• Encouraging student attendance and enhancing student employability were the top issues globally.
• Employability was of greatest importance in Latin American, Middle East/Africa, and the U.S. compared to Europe, Russia, and Asia.
• Encouraging student attendance was of greatest importance in Latin American and Middle East/Africa compared to the U.S., Asia, and Europe.
Top Administrative and Strategic Issues
• Improving network security was one of the top administrative and strategic issues listed by all education officials.
• Communicating better with parents was the most highly rated issue followed by improved communications with faculty/staff, then students.
• In this category, communication among students, teachers, and parents was listed as the top priority for every region besides Europe. European representatives classified improving network security, developing research capabilities, branding, and creating an international presence as the top concerns for institutions in their region.
Top Technology Issues
• Protecting students from Internet abuse and using technologies to help students and faculty work better together were of greatest importance to respondents.
• Schools rated protecting students from Internet abuse of greatest importance compared to universities.
• Using technologies to help students/faculty work together was rated higher by schools compared to universities.
Top U.S. Results
General Overview
U.S. Survey respondents see a large role for technology relative to: improving how students learn, helping prepare the workforce of the future, improving opportunities for students to obtain lifelong learning, improving how teachers teach, and increasing collaboration with the learning process.
Improving teaching through more practical training that allows teachers to learn from one another was seen, by far, as the idea that can make the biggest difference for schools. The idea for schools seen as second most important was the creation of new curricula with a stronger focus on math skills and literacy.
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Schools
Top five education and learning issues:1. Encouraging student attendance
2. Increasing student performance through a better learning experience
3. Implementing a 21st century skills agenda that equips students with problem solving and critical thinking skills
4. Preparing students for higher education
5. Providing remediation to help students who are falling behind
Top five administrative and strategic issues:1. Ensuring classroom discipline
2. Retaining good students
3. Improving the ability of teachers to leverage technology, media, and computing tools
4. Taking advantage of new technologies
5. Providing physical safety on campus
Top five technology issues:1. Equipping classrooms with advanced technological equipment
2. Protecting students from Internet abuse
3. Using new technologies to help students and faculty work better together
4. Using data-driven assessment and decision-making systems
5. Strengthening cyber security on campus
Higher Education
Top five teaching and learning issues:1. Increasing student performance through a better learning experience
2. Motivating students to work harder and excel
3. Implementing a 21st century skills agenda that equips students with problem solving and critical thinking skills
4. Helping students solve real world problems
5. Providing wider access to education opportunities
Top five administrative and strategic issues:1. Retaining good students
2. Providing physical safety on campus
3. Communicating better with faculty and staff
4. Providing online network security
5. Communicating better with students
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Top five technology issues:1. Equipping classrooms with advanced technological equipment
2. Using new technologies to help students and faculty work better together
3. Using new technologies to reduce administrative expenses
4. Accessing wireless networks with adequate bandwidth
5. Expanding online learning
Top take-aways
On education and learning issues: The two most important overall were increasing student performance through a better learning experience and preparing students for higher education.
On administrative and strategic issues: Retention of good students rated highest overall largely because of strong ratings among community college and university administrators.
On technology issues: Equipping classrooms with advanced technological equipment and using new technologies to help students and faculty work better together were, overall, the two highest rated for importance.
On the most important education IT Goals: Increasing efficiency ranked first with lowering cost and improving quality following in second and third place.
On qualities of education providers: Good value for the price was by far the most prized quality in terms of messaging. Efficient and timely performance and “subject matter expertise” ranked next.
On company abilities: Providing a reliable product on time at a fair price was the message that hits the hardest across the board.
Top Global Results
Latin America
On an aspirational level, Latin American respondents saw the majority of teaching and learning issues as of higher importance than any other region. These results indicate leaders in Latin America are extremely interested and enthusiastic about education and optimistic on technology’s capacity as a catalyst for the transformation of teaching and learning in their region. Attendance, employability, and preparing students for a global economy were rated as being crucial to producing successful, prepared, and well-rounded students.
In general, administrative and strategic issues are rated as being more important to Latin American respondents than to any other surveyed region. Again, this indicates a very high level of engagement and enthusiasm pertaining to these particular issues. According to the survey, the top issues for Latin America in this category were new technology, communicating better with faculty and staff, online network security and funding.
Latin Americans rate decreasing administrative expenses, helping students and faculty members work together, and preventing Internet abuse as the top three technology issues that the region faces.
On technology vendors, Latin America is most interested in the qualities of innovation and creativity offered by the vendor. They also look for efficient and timely performance, and good value when searching for a vendor to partner with.
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According to the survey, institutions from Latin America are most likely to invest in wireless services, interactive white boards/handheld devices, and video services.
Middle East and Africa
Homogeneous to Latin America, the survey respondents from the Middle East and Africa rated attendance, employability, and preparation for a global economy as three of the most important teaching and learning issues that are crucial when educating students.
The issues that take priority for the Middle East and Africa in the administrative and strategic section of the survey are communicating with parents, communicating with faculty members and staff, interacting with students, and implementing new technology in the classroom.
Reducing administrative expenses, preventing Internet abuse, adding more cyber security, and enabling students and faculty to work together are the top three technology issues for the Middle East and Africa.
Middle East and Africa are most interested in thought leadership and innovation and creativity with regard to an education technology vendor.
Middle East and African respondents are most likely to invest in teleconferencing technology, wireless services, and interactive white boards/handheld devices.
Europe
In the education and learning portion of the survey, respondents from Europe rated attendance, remediation, and international collaboration as their top priorities.
The key issues for Europe in the administrative and strategic category are funding, online and network security capabilities, research capabilities, branding, and international presence.
The top three technological issues for the European region are helping students and faculty members work together, reducing administrative costs, and preventing Internet abuse.
When choosing an education technology partner, European respondents are most interested in good value, efficient and timely performance, and innovation as the qualities of an education technology vendor.
European education institutions are most likely to purchase wireless services, energy efficiency technologies, video services, and interactive white boards.
Asia-Pacific
In Asia-Pacific countries, India specifically, increasing student performance was rated higher by respondents in this region than in any other region. Also, schools, as well as college and university administrators, gave higher ratings in the categories of project-based learning, transforming curricula, and motivating students than any other geographic segment. Moreover, the initiative of helping students grow morally and responsibly was rated very highly in Asia-Pacific.
Communications is the top priority for respondents in the administrative and strategic section. In this category, officials rated communicating with students, parents, faculty, and staff as the top three issues.
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The top three technology issues in Asia-Pacific are implementing more cyber security, helping students and faculty members work together, and preventing Internet abuse.
With regard to an education vendor, Asia-Pacific is most interested in an efficient and timely performance, subject matter expertise, and good value.
Asia-Pacific education institutions are most likely to purchase wireless services, interactive white board/handheld devices, and physical security/notification services.
Top Imperatives
Based on the responses of education officials during the extensive survey process, several common concerns, issues, and imperatives surfaced.
Motivating students, increasing attendance rates, preparing students for the workforce, increasing communications among faculty, parents, and students, improving cyber security, advancing research capabilities, building a solid infrastructure, and finding new ways to fund technological advances in the classroom are the initiatives that respondents were the most interested in developing.
The section below contains a list of these priorities organized in a categorical fashion. These issues can and have been solved by customers utilizing Cisco technology; examples and illustrations of these customers are detailed in this next section.
Collaboration and Engagement
Motivating students, raising attendance rates, and preparing students for the workforce are key concerns that many respondents illustrated in the survey. Ultimately, these challenges boil down to the issue of finding ways to engage students in the learning process
using collaborative and innovative tools and curricula. For example, video technology can be a powerful resource to connect students with the educational content being taught. With this new technology, teachers can set up virtual field trips with museums, aquariums, and other educational institutions around the globe from their own classroom. Imagine being a student and taking a field trip to the National Aerospace Museum during a unit in a science class about the physics of flight. Cisco TelePresence® technology allows participants thousands of miles apart to feel like they are in the same room. TelePresence can be utilized by students and faculty members to collaborate and communicate with each other in an “immersive,” life-like manner.
Paradise Valley Unified School District (PVUSD) spans approximately 98 square miles in the northeastern area of Phoenix, Arizona. Over 34,000 students and approximately 3,000 staff, which includes teachers and administrators, are spread throughout 31 elementary schools, seven middle schools, five high schools, and a variety of specialty schools, making PVUSD the fourth-largest school district in the state in number of schools and the seventh-largest in terms of student population. The district strove to solve the issues of delivering innate human expressions and experiences in remote communications, and advancing pedagogy and success of remote learning and communications. Cisco TelePresence was the technology they chose to tackle these initiatives.
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“I frequently get asked why we decided to install Cisco’s TelePresence solution,” says Billings. “The answer is the simplicity and quality of the integration with our current infrastructure. From the exchange, to the routing, to the VoIP, to the high-definition video, and all points in-between, I am easily able to leverage our prior investments. Essentially, Cisco’s stable and intuitive services act as the foundation for PVUSD to launch our own revolutionary learning concepts.”
- Jeff BillingsDirector of Information Technology PVUSD
The application of the Cisco TelePresence solution in PVUSD is succeeding in real, discernible ways, and “PVUSD is constantly discovering new ways to utilize TelePresence,” says Billings. “It will become further leveraged in the future.”
Communications
Enhancing the communications between school officials, students, parents, and other faculty members was one of the top priorities listed by educators worldwide. All respondents indicated that there was a clear need to communicate within the education process – among all constituent groups. This challenge is one that some schools have already taken actions to address.
The University of Warwick is one of the U.K.’s leading universities, and it has an acknowledged reputation for excellence in research and teaching, innovation, and links with business and industry. The University has three main campuses and over 5,000 employees.
Needless to say, connecting the faculty members together is a major undertaking. The university adopted Cisco WebEx® technology as a solution to this problem. Cisco WebEx software enables users to share their desktop, stream live video, and live chat with other individuals. Cisco WebEx was distributed to faculty members around the university who collaborated frequently as a part of their job. The university faculty and officials were then able to connect and collaborate with one another easily and efficiently. Ease of use and enabling of short, spontaneous meetings have been two of the most significant benefits that have driven the adoption of Cisco WebEx across the university, in multiple departments, from the core education group, to the medical school, to Warwick’s internationally renowned business school.
Presently, the University has taken steps to incorporate Cisco WebEx® into their teaching and learning programs. Future demand will encompass lectures being recorded via WebEx and uploaded online for students to watch at a later date. According to the university, Cisco WebEx is the simplest and most efficient technology that enables school officials to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other faculty members, students, and even parents.
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Improving Network Security
For schools and campuses, security, both physical and cyber, continues as a major threat and a major opportunity. Educators throughout the world noted the imperative of teaching from within a safe and secure environment. As technology becomes a more prevalent part of the classroom, and more devices (tablets, laptops, smart phones, etc.) become a larger part of everyday learning, many institutions struggle to make their networks both reliable and secure. When a network is not configured to support the exploding number of devices, student’s and teacher’s experience declines, and the security and manageability become jeopardized.
Cisco Borderless Network Architecture and security solutions are the simple answer for the problems caused in an environment characterized by network abuse or intrusion, and the package is one of the industry’s most:
• Scalable: uses the Cisco Identity Services Engine instead of a controller
• Accurate: uses multi-variable fingerprinting
• Lean: does not create RF overhead with multiple SSIDs
• Fast: reduces re-authentication time through the use of a cache
• Granular: offers fully customizable policy levels
Furthermore, the Cisco Borderless Networks solution for tablets reduces customers’ total cost of ownership by requiring fewer boxes to manage, providing a single management platform and protecting wireless network performance. (Figure 1.)
Research Capabilities
For the campus, maintaining an innovative and collaborative computing environment remains as a key item pinpointed in the survey. High-performance computing and research capabilities drive a university’s ability to secure grants and funding, which can be a major revenue contributor to the operating budget. One higher education institution creating innovation in this area is Purdue University. Founded in 1869, Purdue offers undergraduate and graduate degrees, and it is one of the leading research institutions in the United States. Purdue faculty has consistently been recognized for their work on diverse research topics, such as climate modeling, DNA sequencing, geo-engineering techniques to lessen the effects of global warming, and nanotechnology.
To meet constantly increasing needs for computational capacity, Purdue’s central IT organization (ITaP) and faculty researchers work in partnership to build new server clusters, usually once a year. ITaP provides and maintains the racks, networking, and storage, and faculty members purchase their own servers. When faculty makes a request to purchase or temporarily borrow additional server nodes, the IT department provisions them within four hours. “This model allows faculty to buy computation for their average needs instead of their peak needs,” says John Campbell, associate vice president of ITaP’s Rosen Center for Advanced Computing, Purdue University.
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In 2009, ITaP began planning the “Coates Cluster” (named after Ben Coates, former head of Purdue’s electrical engineering department), based entirely on 10 Gigabit Ethernet servers. With 1,280 nodes, it would be the world’s largest academic cluster with all 10 Gigabit Ethernet. To handle huge traffic volumes, the cluster needed a cost-effective 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch platform.
The IT department chose the Cisco Nexus® platform after comparing its price-performance with other networking alternatives. “We needed a platform that would deliver the performance our researchers require and enable us to scale more cost-effectively,” says Campbell.
The new cluster consists of 40 server racks, each connected over lossless 10 Gigabit Ethernet to a Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch at the top of the rack. The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches connect to dual Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches at the core, and also to Network File System (NFS)-mounted storage. Major benefits of the Cisco Nexus platform for Purdue University’s new cluster include:
• High performance: The Cisco Nexus platform provides the combination of high bandwidth and very low latency required by compute-intensive applications. “A mechanical engineering faculty member reported that her application performed 60 percent faster after it was moved to the new cluster,” Campbell says. “The gain is attributable to the increased network bandwidth, because the difference in processing power in the new cluster is negligible.”
• Avoiding code changes: Researchers’ existing applications can operate over the 10 Gigabit Ethernet network without modification. “We didn’t want to require our researchers to recompile their applications,” says Campbell. “The only difference now is that they submit jobs to a different queue and experience better performance.”
• Familiar management interface: The University’s core network includes Cisco equipment, so the IT staff already has experience with Cisco hardware. They needed no additional training to use the Cisco NX-OS.
• Simplified IT organization: The IT department has staff that specializes in high-performance computing, networking, and storage. “Now the networking group manages all networking on the cluster, freeing up the HPC (high-performance computing) group to focus on optimizing application performance,” Campbell says.
ITaP is currently evaluating server virtualization, with the goal of adding “checkpointing” to applications that do not inherently support it. One application for chemistry research, for example, is used for processes that take up to 30 days, making it difficult to schedule jobs between maintenance activities. Checkpointing the virtual machine will allow the researcher to start anytime and continue where the process left off before being interrupted for maintenance. The Cisco Nexus platform offers the bandwidth to support virtualization.
Infrastructure
When we review the overall survey findings, it’s clear that educators around the world have begun to see new applications for the network. Increased use of video and collaboration tools has led to devices progressively finding their way into campus networks. This is interesting – and it indicates that building a bulletproof infrastructure may soon be the top priority of every single institution. Technology, video, learning software, e-books, and collaborative tools will transform the classroom. Soon, these tools will be utilized by educators on a daily basis. When hundreds and even thousands of students are all using these tools synchronously as well as downloading high bandwidth information and video content off the Web, an unstable network will crash. It’s imperative for institutions to have a strong infrastructure in place now that can sustain an intense amount of increasing utilization.
One leader who understands the importance of a solid network infrastructure is Dr. Mark Edwards, superintendent of Mooresville Graded School District (MGSD) in North Carolina. Over the past several years, Dr. Edwards has been the driving force behind
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a 1:1 laptop initiative in his school district. The highly successful implementation of this system has led to drastically improved performance of students in almost every area of scoring, assessment, and retention. Today, MGSD ranks in the top two performing districts in North Carolina – even though they are at the bottom of the 115 districts in state funding, at $7,900 per student per year.
To ensure that all students and teachers would have reliable, real-time access to rich, multimedia content, MGSD installed a Cisco wireless network. According to Edwards and his staff, the district’s expenditures for networking infrastructure were (and continue to be) mission-critical. “Making appropriate investments in computing infrastructure is as important as investing in wiring or lighting,” Edwards says. “I think we were the first district in the nation to use Cisco’s wireless ‘N’ technology…and it’s been absolutely flawless. One of the reasons we’re so enthusiastic about recommending Cisco is that it just works. It almost guarantees what I call a ‘pristine infrastructure.’”
“Having that kind of bandwidth is vitally important; you have to have a networking infrastructure that can support that type of usage,” says Smith. “Really, kids could care less whether they’re downloading a 4KB email or a 25MB video. They just want to know that ‘when I click it, it works.’ My job is to make sure that happens…and because of Cisco, it does.”
- Dr. Scott Smith, CIOMooresville Graded School District
Mooresville High School Principal Todd Wirt believes that without his school’s Cisco network, the shift in academic environment would never have been possible. “When a teacher gives a project now, a huge component of it is some sort of multimedia. So at any given time, we have anywhere from 1,200 to 1,600 students making movies and podcasts, and accessing streaming video on the network. It’s really key to our culture here: it simply has to work.”
Having a solid infrastructure in place is the single most important aspect of developing a technologically-enhanced classroom. Video, collaborative tools, and software programs all require an infrastructure that supports large numbers of students and faculty members. For this reason, it is the first step that institutions must take in order to transform their education systems.
Today at Mooresville, 5,700 students access their Apple Mac laptops, creating videos for school projects, often in collaborative teams. On any given day, hundreds of high-bandwidth video files are passed around the network. Mooresville is thriving, based in part on their reliable, efficient network. Video has become a key learning tool – and the Cisco network has enabled it.
Funding
Educators today are constantly asked to do more while still upholding student attendance, test scores, and graduation rates. It’s not uncommon for schools to be financially unstable due to under-funding. This phenomenon was a noted commonality of survey respondents, and given ongoing funding challenges, these problems are becoming exceedingly difficult to address. Worldwide, institutions are seeing their budgets diminish because of cuts to state funding and a challenging regulatory environment. Council Rock School District (CRSD) resides in a community fraught with the same budget challenges faced by educators and administrators represented in the survey.
CRSD, the ninth largest school district in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., serves 12,400 school students. There are fifteen different school campuses and more than 1,400 full-time staff members. In 2008, the district’s annual IT budget exceeded $5M. Mark Klein, the
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new superintendent of CRSD, conducted a universal benchmarking of operations in order to find new ways to improve efficiency and funding. Klein found numerous problems in the district’s wide-area network, phone systems, and communication technologies. Cisco provided the solutions that would address Mark Klein’s inherent budget challenges.
There were several phases of the upgrade. In the first phase, a Cisco Catalyst® 6509 Series Switch was installed at the core, and the schools were connected to a variety of gigabyte fiber WAN Catalyst Switches. This installation created a reliable, high-performance WAN for the entire district. From this point forward, the department was able to implement wireless mobility systems in each of the schools, creating true wireless clouds in every building.
During phase two, the district took steps to implement technologies that improved their telephone systems. Previously, the schools had their own private branch exchanges (PBXs), and they were all due for replacement. Not only was this system incredibly inefficient and unreliable, but it also relied on a technician to travel to the school anytime an extension had to be moved - a very expensive and time-consuming process.
“It was more cost effective to replace the PBXs with IP telephony. In addition, with IP telephony, we could give every teacher a dedicated extension and voicemail. We can set up or change any extension anywhere in the district with a mouse click. If a teacher changes classrooms, he or she just takes the phone to the new room, plugs it in, and all of the programming moves with the phone. Instead of making a toll call, we have four-digit extensions across the network. We also have auto-attendant, so it’s easy for parents to reach a department or teacher at any hour without going through the front office.”
- Matt Frederickson IT Director, Council Rock School District
With the new network in place, providing centralized control over all of the district’s HVAC systems, merely required running a cable from the controllers to the switches in each building’s wiring closets. To date, the district’s “Go Green” program has exceeded its original projections and everyone’s wildest expectations, cutting energy consumption by 42.7 percent and preserving an astounding $5.3 million for the district’s budget. Deservedly, CRSD has been awarded Energy Star’s “Partner of the Year” for two years in a row.
By utilizing unified connectivity technologies, the district is also able to control their operational services. Through the click of a mouse, the administration was able to set the district to “unoccupied mode” during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. This simple change saved the district $64,000 over the 14-day break. Furthermore, the district now could remotely shut down the desktop PCs for 12 hours a day for just 1,700 of the school’s 5000 computers. Frederickson estimates that this will save the district an additional $85,000 a year. Another $75,000 was saved in one year because of the installation of IP phones. The IP phones allowed for the elimination of unnecessary telephone lines and long distance calls.
“By bringing together best practices in energy management and IT, we believe that we have developed a program that other schools can adopt to help deal with fiscal pressures and environmental imperatives. That’s a gratifying contribution that reaches beyond the boundaries of our district,” states Mark Klein, district superintendent.
Increasing efficiency is an issue that is common among administrators around the world. By utilizing Cisco technologies, the Council Rock School District (along with many other districts) have discovered new approaches that can not only dramatically decrease costs but can also increase the effectiveness and reliability of their network and phone systems.
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Cisco’s Approach
At Cisco, we believe that education will continue to be seen as a way for nations everywhere to invest in their citizens, build stronger societies, and create better economic well-being. We call this the “Learning Society.” Together, and through our innovative “Connected Learning” solutions and partnerships, we connect, engage, and empower learners, educators, and leaders to improve learning, accelerate economic growth, and strengthen social well-being. Schools, colleges, and universities across the globe are focused on several key imperatives to help them more effectively deliver next generation learning to their students. Cisco solution portfolios help address the most critical issues that our customers face – they are:
• Next Generation Learning
• Efficiency
• Safety and Security
• Research and Knowledge
Next Generation Learning
As one component of the Connected Learning solution portfolio, Cisco’s solutions for next generation learning help increase access to quality education, effectively engage and prepare students for the future, reach new learners beyond traditional classroom walls, provide opportunities for lifelong learning, and deliver effective professional development programs. These solutions help create collaborative experiences and improve learning outcomes for students.
• Cisco WebEx: Delivers virtual and distance learning with rich functionality and collaboration capabilities.
• Cisco Digital Media Suite: A comprehensive offering of social video, digital signage, and IPTV systems, this solution can help transform how students and teachers learn, grow, communicate, and collaborate.
• Cisco Unified Communications/Collaboration: Improve communications and collaboration by helping students, faculty, staff, and parents to connect and collaborate in real-time.
• Cisco Video-Enabled Teaching and Learning: A combination of Show-and-Share and Cisco Media Experience Engine to enable recording, posting, and transcoding of video for consumption of video on multiple devices (smartphones, laptops, TV-broadcast).
• Cisco TelePresence Synch: Synch technology allows educators to synch high definition video with their existing interactive whiteboard technologies.
• Cisco Movi: Tightly integrated with Tandberg call control management, Movi offers infrastructure endpoints that extend the TelePresence experience anywhere, on any device, at anytime.
Efficiency
Cisco’s solutions for efficiency, within the Connected Learning solution portfolio, help schools create new levels of efficiency through technology, and streamline day-to-day management and ongoing maintenance of a district or school’s communications infrastructure. The solutions in this portfolio help teachers and administrators make smarter, faster decisions, improve administrative and operational processes, and increase energy savings. Ultimately, these solutions help schools maximize scarce resources so that they can invest in initiatives that help them deliver effective teaching and learning.
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• Cisco Unified Communications/Collaboration: Streamline communications and collaboration by helping students, faculty, staff, and parents to connect and collaborate in real-time.
• Cisco Wireless and Mobility solutions: Create a robust, end-to-end mobility-enabled network that supports the unique computational, access, and multimedia needs of today’s students.
• Cisco Connected Real Estate and Cisco EnergyWise solutions: Improve energy management and reduce energy consumption with innovative architecture, delivering all building services over a centrally-managed IP network.
• Cisco Data Center and Virtualization solutions: Virtualization, unified fabric, and unified computing technologies that help colleges and universities manage their existing server resources more.
• Cisco Desktop Virtualization solutions: Desktop virtualization (sometimes called client virtualization), allows schools, colleges, and universities to separate a personal computer desktop environment from a physical machine using the client–server model of computing.
Safety and Security
Safe learning is an essential component of Cisco’s Connected Learning solution portfolio. Safety and security are critical in helping educational institutions protect networks and campus assets and to create environments where students feel safe and secure. When students feel safe, they learn more effectively. The Cisco holistic approach to school safety and security integrates physical security devices with IT infrastructures.
• Physical Security: IP-based solutions for video surveillance, access control, and IP communications.
• Network Security:
o Café: The Cisco Cyberspace Action for Education (CAFE) promotes Internet security awareness in the education community.
• Notifi-ED: Internal and external mass notification systems reach and communicate critical information to faculty, staff, students, parents, and first responders; automate security breach identification and notification of on- and offsite security personnel.
Research and Knowledge
Cisco works closely with schools, colleges, and universities to turn their education vision into reality. From helping define a vision and identifying gaps to providing a comprehensive set of solutions that address these gaps, we help customers transform the education that they’re delivering today into robust Connected Learning solutions that effectively deliver learning opportunities for students of all ages.
• Research and Administrative Computing: Cisco’s Data Center and Collaboration solutions can help administrative leaders and research center directors save time and money and improve performance by working better together.
• Data Center: Virtualization, unified fabric, and unified computing technologies that help colleges and universities manage their existing server resources more effectively, simplify data center management, and integrate resources into a cohesive system.
• Collaboration: Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco WebEx, Cisco TelePresence technologies that help administrative leaders and researchers communicate and collaborate more effectively and work better together.
• National Research Networks: Partnerships with national and international research networks, including the National LambdaRail (NLR), a US asset-based IP + optical research and education network that is fully owned and operated by its equity participants.
• Research Initiatives: Cisco Research Center (CRC) facilitates research interactions between Cisco and universities worldwide.
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Summary and Conclusions
As the Cisco survey indicates, educators everywhere see technology as a major opportunity to drive improvements in teaching and learning. Raising attendance rates, motivating students, and preparing them to be an effective part of the workforce are all issues highlighted in our study – and they remain incredibly difficult issues that educators today struggle with on a daily basis. The key to each of these issues is finding a new way to engage students in the learning process.
The education system has changed little since the turn of the century. Unfortunately for the system, students have.
Students are immersed in a world of technology from the time they wake up in the morning until the moment that they go to sleep at night. The only period of time when they are not completely surrounded by technology is when they are sitting in the classroom.
Teachers often wonder why students do not come to class, or why they are absent minded when they are present. Today’s education system needs to provide students with a learning environment that is relevant to their lives outside of the classroom. If we want to raise attendance rates, test scores and ultimately produce well-rounded students, there must be a change in the way students today are taught. The driving force behind this change will be technology.
Education delivery is going to change in the next five years more than it has in the last twenty. Soon, there will not be a middle ground between technology and education. Education will simply become technology. If properly managed and implemented, technology truly has the potential to change teaching and learning, everywhere.
Notes
Infrastructure passage from case study: Every Child, Every Day: Mooresville’s “Digital Conversion” Puts Kids First
Network Security passage based on article: Tablets Welcomed: How to Get Any Device, on Any Network reliably and Securely
Efficiency passage from case study: Technology Helps School District Curtail Energy Costs
Collaboration and Engagement passage from case study: School District Provides Remote Communications Around the World
Communications passage from case study: Innovating on an International Scale
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Cisco has more than 200 offices worldwide. Addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers are listed on the Cisco Website at www.cisco.com/go/offices.
Cisco and the Cisco Logo are trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. (1005R)
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Americas Headquarters Cisco Systems, Inc. San Jose, CA
Asia Pacific Headquarters Cisco Systems (USA) Pte. Ltd. Singapore
Europe Headquarters Cisco Systems International BV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Mix & Match: Collaboration, Creativity Yield Additional Savings There are a number of other initiatives launched by U.S. school districts that take advantage of local and regional opportunities; many can be replicated successfully in other districts. Creative and eclectic, the list represents the type of out-of-the-box thinking that is typical of school systems that nurture innovation:
Centralized kitchen/food services under consideration (Campbell)
Student-run help desk (MGSD); saves time and money, helps students acquire proficiency with various technologies (two students will soon become Apple-certified technicians)
printing, after school childcare, data center usage; combining maintenance agreements (especially for telecom systems) into a single plan (Round Rock)
Partnership with neighboring districts to maintain transportation vehicles, share services, reduce costs (Round Rock)
“Virtual appliances” (Campbell); these would run on the system at a fraction of the regular cost, while delivering 24/7 access to students and teachers via any device
Replacement of textbooks with eReaders (Campbell); pilot program saw a paralegal scanning and uploading case law into Lexus Nexus for easy access by students. Total cost: $200
Summary: Districts Benefit Lessons Learned If there’s a silver lining in the cloud of economic uncertainty that has hovered over the nation in the past several years, it is the fact that organizations have learned to be innovative, vigilant and prudent in their expenditures. Nowhere has this become more a part of the collective DNA than in the educational arena. Faced with a similarly challenging forecast for the near term, school districts will continue to seek the most expedient and cost-effective methodologies for teaching and learning. In virtually all cases, technology will remain an essential component of their cost-reduction and service-enhancement strategies.
However, while technological innovation will continue to be the hallmark of the most progressive districts, one factor will always remain a constant. “The human touch is important,” said Paradise Valley’s Billings. “As one of our tenth-graders told us, she likes to know that she ‘can get to know the teacher on the other side of the computer.’”
To learn how your school district can drive innovation and reduce costs through technology, please contact your Cisco Account Manager at [email protected].