Educational institutions rely on strong communications to ensure productivity, efficiency, and excellent outcomes for students. Whether working with staff members on lesson plans, connecting with distributed students, or managing the flow of information in an educational institution, the right technology is becoming crucial to success.
Unified Communication tools, with the ability to align knowledge and employees across a distributed ecosystem, are quickly gaining popularity in the education space. With the right tools, schools, universities, and training facilities can all operate more efficiently in an evolving space.
As the educational space continues to face new challenges as a result of rapid digital transformation and the pandemic, UC could be the key to staying ahead of the curve.
The Rising Need for UC in Education
Like many industries, the educational sector has shifted into a state of rapid transformation in recent years, relying on technology to respond to the issues presented by the pandemic. Concepts like remote and online schooling have grown more common, and teachers are communicating with both students and colleagues across a variety of different platforms.
Unified Communication has the potential to not only bring educators closer together but enhance the way educators interact with their students and track important tasks. Paving the way for agile productivity and growth, the right UC investments can support:
- Improved efficiency: UCaaS platforms keep students and faculty better connected through a variety of valuable channels, including video calls, audio conferencing, direct messaging and more. These tools not only strengthen the learning experience for students but also help team members in an educational institution to share information about classes, keep track of lesson plans, and collaborate effectively with each other.
- Enhanced administration: Keeping track of the constant flow of information throughout an educational landscape can be difficult. However, one lost file could be enough to cause significant disruption. With a unified space for all interactions and documents, it’s much easier for companies to keep track of critical information, from compliance documents to student files.
- Better collaboration: UC solutions are becoming increasingly aligned with collaboration tools and services to keep teams connected. The right solutions in the education environment can make it easier for teachers to gain insights from specialists. Users can also work with other professionals on lesson plans to create a more immersive learning experience for students and share feedback with the entire team.
- Enhanced insights: Aside from making information and processes easier to track in the business landscape, UC tools can also improve business intelligence for educational groups. Enhanced insights make it easier to track everything, from which teaching methods are best at engaging students to which teachers may need additional training. Administrators can also track how educators tend to collaborate.
- Reduced costs: Educational institutions often work according to tight budgets, which means they’re constantly searching for ways to keep expenses low. A UC solution can cut costs, reducing the amount of physical hardware required to run a communication stack. The same solutions can also allow facilities to hire remote staff members to aid in delivering educational experiences for a lower cost than flying them out in person.
The Trends Driving UC for in Education
Like most industries, education has seen some significant challenges emerging from the impact of the pandemic. By 2020, around 93% of all households with school-aged children had transitioned into distance learning. It wasn’t just children accessing these facilities either. Countless universities and professional training institutions also had to shift into the online world.
Although some of the restrictions of the pandemic have begun to subside, a new demand for remote and flexible learning means many educational groups still need to continue their path of evolution. This path is likely to include a deeper investment in UC solutions, driven by trends like:
- New learning experiences: UC solutions allow educational institutions to provide their students with a wider range of learning opportunities. Students can take classes using messaging and video conferencing tools combined with online assignments and tasks. There’s even the potential for new forms of immersive learning to emerge in the UC space with the arrival of XR (Extended Reality) technologies.
- Hybrid work: Just as students no longer need to be present in the classroom at all times to learn, educators also don’t need to be in the same location. The rise of hybrid and remote work is allowing educational groups to reach out to specialists and tutors from around the world to offer a better quality of training to students. However, these professionals rely on UC tools to remain connected to the rest of the team.
- AI and analytics: Artificial Intelligence and analytics tools built into Unified Communication systems can help to accelerate our path towards a better quality of education. Capturing information collected by chatbots and virtual assistants in a UC environment can help teachers learn more about how to engage students. Information about how students use UC applications, as well as how team members utilise their tools, can also lead educational groups towards making better business decisions.
- Virtual events: Educational companies often invest in events, learning experiences, and other meaningful interactions for their personnel on a regular basis. UC solutions can provide companies with access to virtual event experiences where professionals can interact and share ideas with other specialists from around the world.
The Rise of UC in Education
As the educational landscape continues to evolve, UC has the power to play an important role in what the schools and training environments of tomorrow might be. The right tools can bring team members together from all over the world, paving the way for new forms of education and helping learning providers keep costs low without compromising on quality.
In the future, Unified Communication technologies will strengthen productivity in the educational landscape while ensuring students can continue to get the support they need.
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