Without high-quality internet services, a school can make only limited use of its technology resources.
Imagine a school leader who’s spent hours and hours sourcing and setting up a brand new suite of technology resources. Rooms are filled with Chromebook carts, teacher laptops, projectors, and SMART boards, all awaiting use by teachers and students on day one of school.
The only problem? The school hasn’t invested in high-quality internet services. Once teachers and students begin to use their new devices, connectivity issues abound. Students receive error messages in the middle of an online instructional module, teachers can’t send a time-sensitive email to a student’s parent or the principal, and administrators can’t access online data and assessment platforms to review student performance.
Without investing in high-quality internet services, schools can make only limited use of their technology resources, frustrating even the most well-intentioned school administrator. Below, we outline some of the ways in which CTS helps schools source, set up, and monitor high-quality internet services so that teachers and students can make the most of their school’s technology resources.
CTS begins by sourcing high-quality internet services so school leaders can focus on other priorities.
For many school leaders, sourcing high-quality internet services can prove daunting. Beyond a lack of technical know-how, many school leaders don’t have the time to thoroughly research and evaluate the multitude of internet service options available to their schools. Without a lens through which to compare provider or service “a” to provider or service “b,” school leaders are often forced to make last-minute, rash decisions that don’t always result in the best service quality.
CTS solves for these and other sourcing issues by first understanding its partner schools’ unique instructional goals and budgetary constraints. It then takes those findings and, armed with decades of experience in the educational technology space, sources a range of options for school leaders that conform to their needs.
What would take a school leader hours of focused, uninterrupted time—a rarity in the school setting—can take CTS a matter of minutes. Relieved of the burden of sourcing the school’s internet services, the school leader can instead devote their time to other instructional priorities.
More than any other factor, reliability is key.
When sourcing high-quality internet services, reliability and, to a lesser extent, cost is key. But a cheap internet service or wireless infrastructure won’t mean much if it’s constantly malfunctioning, preventing teachers and students from making full use of the school’s technology resources.
A wireless internet system that “goes out” in the middle of the day can prove especially frustrating for teachers already struggling to balance the demands of large class sizes, packed schedules, and students with particular learning challenges. Removing this variable from the range of challenges teachers confront each day can make instruction just a little bit easier.
School leaders also depend on reliable internet services to communicate time-sensitive information to their teachers and students’ family members. Suppose a principal wants to announce a safety drill a few minutes before it occurs, for example. In that case, it’s not efficient for the principal to travel from room to room, interrupting the teacher to let the class know about the upcoming drill. Likewise, suppose a school plans to close the following day for inclement weather. In that case, school leaders will typically send out an alert via a messaging app. or email, both of which depend on reliable internet services.
When CTS sources internet services and other IT infrastructure for its partner schools, it keeps these and other less intuitive scenarios in mind, drawing upon its team members’ experience in the educational technology space.
CTS also monitors schools’ internet services to get ahead of any potential issues.
Finally, CTS works with its partner schools to monitor and proactively troubleshoot any issues that arise with schools’ internet services or other wireless infrastructure. If a switch is getting old or a particular part of the school has a low level of connectivity, for example, CTS can alert a school leader before the issue is apparent to teachers or students. From there, CTS can present the school leader with a range of options to address the issue, getting ahead of any potential outages before they occur so that instruction continues uninterrupted.
At CTS, we help schools make the most of their technology resources so they can accomplish their unique missions.
Our goal is to take care of the technology so that school leaders can focus on teachers, students and accomplish their schools’ unique missions. With an unparalleled depth of knowledge in the educational technology space and the technical know-how to solve even the most complex school IT challenges, CTS allows its partner schools to take their educational technology programming to the next level. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help your school accomplish its unique mission.
