The cloud revolution has swept through the IT landscape over the past two years and the education market is no exception. As a Managed IT provider for several K-12 school districts, our clients have widely adopted the cloud model over expensive and time intensive self hosted options. From teachers, to administrators, and IT support staff, we break down some of the more popular cloud based solutions for available to schools:
For the Entire School
G Suite: Google’s productivity suite, formerly known as Google Apps, first revolutionized the Ed Tech World when they offered it pro bono to schools. More than just email, G Suite contains Google Drive, Calendar, sites and more. If your district has Chrome devices, you can take advantage of the Google Device Manager to configure deployment profiles.
Office 365: Joining Google in offering pro bono products to Schools, Microsoft now offers the popular online version of the Office Suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook) to Schools for free.
For the Classroom
ClassFlow: A web based lesson delivery software, ClassFlow transforms interactive whiteboards into a dynamic platform to engage students in blended learning. Have 1:1? Students can stream the lesson right to their devices as they are occurring on the board.
Google Classroom: The digital hub for your class, Google Classroom is the platform for distributing assignments, posting lessons, creating quizzes, and more. Its integration with other Google products is especially useful if your district uses G Suite.
Kahoot: Interactive quiz platform which is beloved by teachers and students alike.
For Administrators
Frontline: The one stop shop for administrators, Frontline provides a single platform for teacher evaluations, human resources, and Special Education / IEP tracking.
Board Docs: Paperless meeting agendas, minutes, and documents.
For the Tech Department:
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall: A complete Firewall and Web Filter based entirely in the cloud. Your choice of deployment vendors includes Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.
Spiceworks Help Desk: Spice up your IT Support with a free help desk system from Spice Works. This Universally acclaimed software is cloud based and can be set up within 5 minutes. For more advanced users, a self hosted version is available.