Enabling the Classroom in the Cloud

When confined to physical classroom, many students have had the tendency to daydream beyond the standard four walls. While many a thought may have ventured to being up in the clouds, the concept of the classroom in the cloud actually has a very different meaning. In fact, as a result of leveraging the capabilities of cloud computing services students can now broaden their horizons both literally and figuratively.

A recent Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert) white paper, A Classroom In The Cloud, explores this concept in depth. It highlighs the possibility of a new business model for educators that builds on the infrastructure of service providers to create an expansive new education platform where the sky is the limit. It is an approach that promises to reduce costs, improve engagement (a reduction in daydreaming) and can actively measure each student’s success — giving parents greater peace of mind. 

Enhancing learning

In the educational system improving performance for students is a constant focus. It is one that cries out for transformational change. With a solution like Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand™ solution , telecommunications services providers are now in a unique position to assist educational institutions by enabling them to harness the potential not just desktops but mobile devices to accelerate the use of digital content to augment and expand the learning experience gained in the traditional classroom. 

The provision of reliable network infrastructure, supplying all students with standardized devices and partnering with applications to support flexible teaching and learning, is the foundation for creating new learning experiences. Educators are empowered to improve their teaching tools and  reduce overall costs for delivering higher quality interactive learning situations by  recasting student engagement. The bonus is that teachers, students and parents also have access to performance analytics. The results are increased abilities to access the best resources for all stakeholders, and the ability to remodel educational standards throughout the world. 

Making a difference with the cloud

With the carrier cloud, the connected classroom can completely change the education experience for students from kindergarten all the way through college. Schools and teachers, for instance, can streamline lesson-plan workflow, creating a more accurate and immediate measures to assess student comprehension so adjustments can easily be made and individualized teaching enabled. Other benefits include:

• Funding from state and federal programs designed to encourage the adoption of new technology.
• Paper-based models are replaced, reducing the cost of learning.
• New data streams are generated with things like the GoClass Cloud application.
• Plus, the technical infrastructure is managed as an annual operating expense instead of a capital outlay.

The carrier cloud also changes the experience for the students as they gain access to rich and immersive content that is delivered on the devices they actually want to use. Free and paid rich content can supplement formal lesson plans and the resulting engaging environment encourages students to learn, share and collaborate with their peers. At the same time, they can personalize and annotate the content, while a permanent record of their learning is built and kept. 

As mentioned, possibly the biggest benefit of the classroom in the cloud is that it allows parents to gain direct insight into classroom curriculum, monitoring their child’s progress in real-time, allowing for more participation in their education. Likewise, educational materials publishers have a new standard to meet in the marketplace, while opportunities to up-sell high value content can be automated for optimal revenue opportunities. 

The cloud has enabled the introduction of a full range of new services and solutions. With the introduction of the classroom in the cloud, students benefit from increased access to new technologies and content to improve the overall educational experience.  

Edited by Peter Bernstein