Cloud computing is on the rise in education and it’s no wonder considering the pace in which educational establishments had to establish online homeschooling during the pandemic. This aside, students are increasingly relying on innovative technologies and multiple devices to facilitate their learning process. This is why it’s crucial for educators to keep up to date and find appropriate cloud education and homeschooling solutions that are able to give students a comprehensive virtual school experience.
The benefits of cloud solutions for homeschooling
Cloud solutions for education not only reduce costs and effort but can also improve the relationship between the educational establishment and the student’s parents, leading to more efficient communication. But that’s not the only benefit. Here is an overview of the advantages of homeschooling programs:
- Better teacher/student communication: Two-way communication can be easier in an online homeschooling environment compared with a more formal classroom structure. Both can collectively work on various documents and leave notes without having to manually send each other files.
- Reduced expenses: Homeschooling software is often subscription-based, which cuts down on costs for the school as well as for parents. With all material saved in the cloud, fewer devices and textbooks need to be purchased and many children already own digital devices anyway. If this isn’t the case, ALSO offers financing solutions to make sure everyone can take part.
- Better flexibility for teachers: Teachers are able to update their curriculum from wherever they are and add new ideas to lesson plans, making it easier to provide the best education possible.
- Better accessibility for students: Students are able to access material outside of regular class times, which enables them to work at their own pace. If they didn’t understand something in the lesson, the material is available for them to go through again at any time.
- Less effort for the establishment: The beauty of cloud solutions for education is that homeschooling software can be automatically updated. With so much storage available, there’s also no need to constantly worry about reaching the storage limit. Cloud education solutions can be scaled as needed to perfectly suit the establishment.
- Better sustainability: Cloud education solutions result in less paper usage since tasks don’t need to be printed out and handed to a whole class of students. This is beneficial to the environment.
- Improved inclusion and safety: Homeschooling solutions enable students with reduced mobility or illness to participate in lessons without physically attending the class. With all students having lessons at home, everyone is protected in case anyone has an infectious disease.
Cloud education solutions and homeschooling solutions
At ALSO, we offer CaaS (Classroom-as-a-Service) as a homeschooling solution through our resellers to make virtual learning that little bit easier for teachers, students, and parents. The CaaS packages include hardware, software, 24x7 support, as well as repair and replacement services, i.e. everything required for successful virtual education. Via the ALSO Cloud Marketplace, ALSO partners can quickly and easily put together needs-based hardware, software, support and financial services into solution packages for educational institutions and offer them on a subscription model basis. Partners are also able to buy licenses (for Microsoft, for example) in the Cloud Marketplace with a monthly subscription. This results in access to services such as OneDrive (a file hosting service) and Skype or Teams, which they can resell to educational establishments.
ALSO offers Microsoft 365 Education as homeschooling software. Its aim is to make it easier for teachers and students alike to work together thanks to its innovative communication and collaboration tools. Security is of the utmost importance and luckily this software’s intelligent security uses machine learning to protect identities, apps, data, and devices.
The difference between Microsoft 365 Education and Microsoft 365 is that while Microsoft 365 Education is aimed at schools and other educational establishments, Microsoft 365 is designed for individuals that want to improve their day-to-day productivity. They achieve this through the premium Office apps included in the software that can be used across all of their devices and help them connect with others and stay organised.
From hardware such as tablets, laptops, headsets, as well as notebooks for teachers, to office accessories such as desks, laptop stands, and monitor arms, ALSO’s homeschooling solutions cover an array of needs. ALSO has experience doing the same for companies, and they can support resellers with the set up if required. There are different installation options depending on the school’s requirements, from setting up appliances through remote access to offering trainings to teachers, pupils, and parents on how to use the technology.
