The pandemic accelerated the digital transformation of virtually every industry. Overnight, countless organisations were forced to shift away from legacy tools, systems, and processes, to embrace a more agile, flexible future in the cloud. Not only did the way we work change forever, but our attitudes towards learning and the nature of education evolved too. 

Even now, as pandemic restrictions ease, the educational landscape remains irrevocably altered. There’s a new and consistent focus on ensuring knowledge can continue to flow freely throughout communities and teams when face-to-face interactions are impossible.

To thrive in this new space, schools, training facilities and universities alike are investing rapidly in digital tools. At the core of this strategy is the shift to Unified Communications. UC tools align educators in a distributed environment to ensure teams can continue to inspire students wherever they are. They also open the door to a new era of virtual education. 

The question is, how do you build a business case for UC in education everyone can understand?

Step 1: Consider the Future of Education

In the past, remote and online learning solutions were extremely limited. Though various higher education and training options had begun to sprout before the pandemic, in-person experiences were still the choice for the majority of learners. Since lockdowns, the trend has flipped. 

We’re now living in a world where e-learning is accelerating at a pace of 20% CAGR, and the multi-billion dollar market isn’t just focused on higher education but on foundational teaching too. Countless schools and institutions are embracing digital tools to ensure they can continue to deliver meaningful experiences to students wherever they are. 

Even schools welcoming students back into classrooms and campuses are beginning to think about how the right digital technology can serve students unable to visit specific spaces. Unified Communications tools are becoming a lifeline to help bring education to those who need it most, wherever they are in the world. 

Going forward, delivering a consistent quality of education to future generations will require educational institutions to invest in UC as a core part of the tools they use every day. From “Rooms” for delivering hybrid learning experiences to both offline and online students to apps for aligning distributed staff, UC will power the future of learning.

Step 2: Empower and Augment Educators

Educators are responsible for shaping the next generation of world leaders, employees, and innovators. However, like any other staff member, the faculty of a school or university still relies on the correct tools to remain productive, engaged, and innovative. Unified Communication tools aren’t just opening the door to online webinars and video conversations with students. 

At the core of a Unified Communications platform is an ecosystem where team members from various environments can come together to share ideas, lesson plans, and strategies for connecting with learners. Mobile apps and desktop systems connected to the UC platform allow teachers to reach out to admin, IT support, and specialists when they need help delivering lessons. 

Unified Communication tools even allow schools to access substitute teachers and additional learning opportunities by tapping specialists from around the globe. In today’s hybrid world, anyone can step in to deliver a class over video and assist in shaping minds. 

As UC tools become increasingly flexible in the age of cloud and AI, there are even numerous ways to empower educators to accomplish more. Staff can collaborate with worldwide specialists, using in-line translation to understand their guidance. Virtual assistants and bots can help with marking and processing digitally delivered workpieces and reports. Many UCaaS solutions can even integrate with Learning Management Systems (LMS) to keep more of the tools educators need in one unified space.

Step 3: Look at the Benefits of True Agility

Many experts agree that the future of education now relies on the ability of institutions to remain agile in the face of rapid transformation. The way students learn and the curriculums being introduced to guide new generations are changing all the time. To stay ahead of the curve, leaders need to be able to keep their finger on the pulse of their faculty, students, and the wider market. 

Unified Communications tools can deliver exceptional opportunities for agility in the modern world. These powerful digital environments align multiple tools critical to the performance of any learning institution in one space, where data can flow freely into tools for tracking trends, patterns, and insights. Using the right technology, it’s possible to track the success of different learning initiatives and even predict future changes. 

With UC systems, administrators in the learning environment can determine which strategies need to be implemented to help both students and teachers do their best work, no matter where learning takes place. At the same time, a cloud-based environment makes it easy to take advantage of new opportunities as they emerge. 

With a UCaaS environment, teams can track the flow of online report submissions quickly and easily to avoid the loss of crucial learning data. They can use virtual assistants to support distributed learners and host online events and webinars for training team members all over the world. In the future, there could even be an opportunity to use the foundations of a UCaaS environment to introduce new methods of teaching through extended reality and the metaverse.

Step 4: Showcase the Potential for Cost Savings

While educational institutions may not prioritise profit like a standard business, they’re still heavily reliant on consistent and healthy cash flow. All educational institutions have budgets and financial restrictions to be aware of when delivering learning experiences to students of any age. 

Part of staying afloat in an unpredictable environment ensure that the costs of supporting students and faculty don’t outweigh the money available to the institution. Unified Communications solutions can help on this front too. Not only do these tools unify more of the bills an educational facility needs to manage on a monthly basis into one expense, but they can cut costs significantly as well. 

Unified Communications solutions reduce the need for travel when specialists are necessary to deliver training to faculty and students by allowing for online events and webinars. The right tools can also cut the costs of delivering educational experiences to students in a range of different environments, by allowing any student to tune into the same lesson, wherever they are. 

Delivered on an as-a-service basis, UCaaS systems can also ensure educational institutions are only paying for the technology they need and nothing more. Each month, teams can adapt their technology ecosystem to suit their students and faculty without compromising on security or service. 

UCaaS paves the way for transformation without draining vital education budgets.

 



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