Teachers Don't Have to Be Techies — Here's Why

Summary: Teachers in primary and secondary schools around the world have been burning out. With more digital elements for them to manage, they often find themselves managing technical issues instead of teaching. It doesn’t have to be this way. A few updates to the school network will provide much-needed relief.

Technology is now an essential part of education. Although eLearning was already weaving its way into primary school classrooms, the pandemic accelerated all things digital. Video, virtual reality elements, and AI used in online lockdown classes are now part of the everyday in-class curriculum. And learning management systems (LMS) are in the majority of schools, with only 6% of schools in the US without one.

An LMS brings a host of elements like online textbooks, various multimedia elements, virtual resources, online tests and quizzes, media clips, interactive learning, augmented reality and virtual reality. Teachers get a dashboard with AI assistants, automatic grading, and self-guided learning for each student. It’s clearly good for student engagement and does help automate some key tasks for teachers, including grading and assessment. But there’s a catch.

Teaching Teachers Takes Time

Bringing an LMS on board is a process. Like any new technology, it requires proper training and a transitionary period to ensure full user adoption. Essentially, you need to teach the teacher first – much the same as learning a new curriculum.

Once the LMS is in place and being used to compliment teaching, it behaves much like any other technology, with the same expected hiccups and integration or interoperability issues. This is where they become a whole other beast for teachers to manage.

Teachers Aren’t Techies

Many LMS solutions require advanced IT skills to administer and handle technical problems. Even just a few children in class with user-based confusion can take up the teacher’s time, let alone if there are genuine technical glitches.

While technology is clearly bringing important improvements to K-12 classrooms, these come at a cost to already-overworked teachers. The solution is to have firm, reliable support in place that enable teachers to focus on teaching instead of technology troubleshooting and administration.

School Networks Hold the Key

The key is to look to the network behind the technologies. These really are the glue that connects everything together. And the strength and sophistication of the school network can be the difference that either provides support or drops the ball.

If you’re running an elementary school network, there are three things you can make sure of to help relieve time-strapped teachers:

Advanced Wi-Fi – Premium Wi-Fi enables high-quality Internet connections for every device in the school. Not only provides teachers with reassurance of access to Internet, but also all of the digital devices in the classroom. Plus at a speed that enables natural, easy collaboration and streaming of various sources.

Visibility and Control — There’s more demand on the school network and increasing things for both you and teachers to keep track of. Rather than relying on teachers or have you burning the candle at both ends, let the network do it for you. Network monitoring should be as essential to the network as the technology it supports. It should help you by automating tedious tasks, preventing technical issues before they happen, and have IoT gateways to manage all the different devices connecting to the network. While you’re at it, put it to work safeguarding against security issues and securing bandwidth for both WAN and LAN connections to support increasing traffic.

This is how today’s schools are reducing network complexity for good

Affordable – All of these suggestions are great, but mean nothing if they’re out of line with the budget. Luckily, both Wi-Fi and advanced network management and monitoring are made available and affordable for K-12 schools around the world. Look for solutions and technology that provide a clear and proven return on investment. Check for a vendor who knows and caters to the education space; they tend to be the ones who understands your core needs and are already offering

Extreme and E-Rate are familiar partners in the US. Find out how you can benefit.

Make Teaching Easier

This may be the most difficult time for teachers in history. But it can also be the most exciting. There’s no need for teachers to burn out because of technology. Support them with a network that takes the guesswork out, provides them with consistent service and happily takes on the administrative work so they can focus on students and learning outcomes.

Learn more about how your network can make education easier
for everyone from K-12 and onward.