Keeping up with educating children for the next generation is challenging enough, keeping up with how technology changes is just that much more difficult.
We’re here to help. We offer eRate services, coronavirus-related hybrid learning solutions, and Cloud Managed Services to help your school educate our nation’s future.
Implementing technology in the classroom is a relatively new phenomenon, made urgently important by the pandemic and the subsequent CDC guidelines in K-12 schools. But this doesn’t mean that your school has to fall behind.
Whether your school is entirely remote, in-person, or using a hybrid-model, technology can ease the transition of learning during the pandemic and ensure that the school is running as smoothly as possible. Maybe your school needs a way to create a cohesive learning environment that fully includes both remote and in-person learners; or maybe it just needs better technology to show students the plethora of information, knowledge, and resources available on the web.
No matter what the specific needs are, you might not be aware of all the technological options and features that are available for education, or you might have that information with no idea how funding or installation would work. Through a program like eRate, which helps subsidize costs of technology for schools, we can ensure that your school can purchase state-of-the-art technologies to help build strong learning, skills and connections for their students across all grade levels. Or, if your school is more concerned about helping students back into the classroom remotely, we could introduce you to OWL Labs. OWL Labs offers a fully immersive technological experience, with a 360-degree camera and targeted views based on whoever is speaking, ensuring that the entire class (even those operating under a hybrid model) can engage in discussion and ask questions from whatever location.
Schools are already overwhelmed right now, and you shouldn’t have to research and implement all of this yourself. That’s why we’re here to help, through programs like eRate and OWL Labs, with bringing school networks up to 21st century standards, and reintroducing students and teachers to a very new type of classroom.
We’ll begin working with your school by asking what your specific concerns and needs are. We can personally help the schools identify and place products to best fit their needs, improving the overall learning and morale of the school. Additionally, our IT professionals can help order, install, and use the technology in all of the school’s rooms and offices.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF), technologies in K-12 classrooms have been growing rapidly and have shown positive effects on learning. With the myriad of information available on the internet, it is vital that students and teachers can access it and harness it as an educational tool.
By having access to technology in the classrooms, teachers can utilize everything the internet and online teaching programs have to give. Teachers may gain virtual visualizations, such as PowerPoints, maps, and videos, to better demonstrate their lessons or can use programs and teaching tools to better assess individual students’ needs. Additionally, by granting each student their own device, teachers can use that technology to individualize lessons and meet the students at their personal level. Students can learn at a pace that suits their needs and in a way †hat best fits their individual learning styles.
Technology is a great supplemental and enrichment tool for teachers. It engages students at their individual levels without interrupting the rest of the class and adds additional visual and auditory resources.
While national data on the effectiveness of technology in the classroom is still in its preliminary stages, the U.S. Department of Education reported that there are “positive effects of technology on learning” in 2016. During unprecedented times like the COVID- 19 pandemic, technology has proved vital to continue educational lessons while maintaining safety for all students and teachers.
Technology in the classrooms and schools can be divided into two categories: networking infrastructure and end-user technologies. CNS Partners specializes in the infrastructure, ranging from fiber and coper wiring to servers, switches, and firewalls to wireless access points. We ensure that the entire school can have fast, reliable internet while maintaining security for all its users. We also ensure that the school’s infrastructure can support all the end-user’s technologies, whether it be mobile laptops, a computer lab of desktops, or an overhead projector or Apple TV.
Each school is unique in the quantity of technology they employ. Our goal as a technology company is to help augment infrastructures so schools can add devices as their needs grow. Studies show that technology benefits learning by providing more ease and resources for teachers and students and we want to support that. Through programs like the Universal Service Administrative Company’s eRate program, we can help fund a better technological infrastructure for your school.
The eRate program was established by the Federal Government to help schools and libraries connect to the internet and establish a robust and secure infrastructure to support workstations. It is a supplemental fund that enables schools and libraries to build up their network and support their students and patrons. Schools and libraries can apply annually for funding through the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC).
eRate is the commonly used name for the Government’s program for K-12 Schools and Libraries and was implemented under the 1996 Telecommunications Act. The program is managed under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC).
The program was intended to ensure that the Internet would be available to “everyone” by focusing on the “last mile” to get Internet into our schools, libraries, and research facilities. It started by paying for Internet circuits (Category 1 of eRate) and then expanded into the wired side of internal networks, switching, and finally WiFI technologies (Category 2) They explicitly drew the line on what the program covers by excluding end-user computing devices such as PCs, laptops, and tablets of every make and variation. Accordingly, if it’s “network” related it’s probably covered, if it’s computing related it probably is not. There are a few items that aren’t obvious, like power related and battery backup systems are allowed as eRate items, but check with your eRate technology provider for more details.
CNS Partners is a group of highly credentialed individuals who take pride in managing the IT needs of manufacturers with a carefully crafted and comprehensive solution suite ranging from high-performing servers to best in market help desk and field services.