IT Staffing Solutions for the Education Sector

Education is not a static science. Rather, it’s very fluid—adapting to student needs, curriculum objectives, and educator preferences. At the same time, technology evolves in response to new approaches to learning, educational management, and security.

IT Staffing is now at the forefront in the Education Sector in Chicago! Pronix IT staffing and recruitment is actively looking to help local education facilities fill the roles of your temporary IT staffing needs so that there is no interruption in teaching in our classrooms and online learning spaces.

Often, education lags behind the curve of technological development. Those who pursue academic excellence should ensure that they take advantage of the latest (but tested and trusted) technological changes. Finding the right educators and teachers for our classrooms is still as important as ever, especially during Covid-19.

Read on to learn about new IT staffing solutions for the education sector.

IT Staffing Solutions for Distance / Online Learning

The advent of the personal computer in the mid-1980s was accompanied by the start of online learning. Unsurprisingly, this new kind of learning became quasi-universal during the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Here are some important IT staffing and recruitment solutions that educators should consider when developing their suite of online learning tools.

• What is a digital learning management system?
• What is a MOOC?
• How can remote offline learning be facilitated?
• Who are you going to hire to teach in the classroom
• What type of  staff do you need to hire for online teaching?
• How can live video collaboration be implemented for online teaching?

First, a digital learning management system is a comprehensive suite of tools and strategies designed to promote student engagement, learning, interaction, and assessment while students remain in their private learning space. The array of available platforms is constantly increasing, as is their ability to engage students.

MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) platforms offer another option for students, which is more suited to independent learning or professional development. These courses are cost-effective options, and many also provide certification.

Even with the democratization of the Internet and computing technologies, there are still students with limited access to online learning. However, remote offline learning solutions can empower every learner. These solutions seed user devices with applications and content via an Internet connection or P2P for a remote offline experience.

In addition, live video collaboration is now possible using tools such as Google Meet, Skype, and Zoom. These platforms can now sync calendars, emails, meetings, and chats, enhancing productivity and reducing downtime related to connectivity and organization.

All these digital learning environments require a skilled IT staff for everything to run smoothly. IT talent acquisitions are at the forefront of the hiring process for full time and part time IT positions nationwise.

IT Recruitment Solutions for In-Class Learning Chicago

Often, educators using IT in the classroom are inspired by what is novel and exciting. But they are chiefly motivated by what is effective. The limits of budget, hardware, and professional development can also limit IT use in the classroom.

However, educators often find creative solutions to implement IT into the classroom. We need to hire the right staff for these online teaching solutions. These solutions often include:

• interactive whiteboards
• interactive websites and applications
• pods of classroom devices or laptops
• the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) approach

Interactive whiteboards draw on group learning and competition to engage learners in whole-class learning, where completed classwork is easily shared with all learners.

During the massive shift to online learning over the past two years, the number of interactive websites and apps for education has exploded. Educators can choose from platforms that offer creative tests, quizzes, games, assignments, and more. Teachers must be recruited with the right skills to operate in this type of classroom space.

Where resources are limited, a pod of classroom laptops or mobile devices allows the teacher to assign devices to appropriate groups and still engage each learner. Engaging students to work in groups reduces the number of passive observers. It empowers every learner – no matter how shy – to get involved.

Another option is to have students bring their own devices (BYOD). Most online educational software is accessible from virtually any platform, enhancing available classroom resources.

Education's New Technology During Covid

Overall, education’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a blend of in-class materials with online platforms that have had variable success rates throughout the crisis.

However, with nearly two years of experience in refining the blend of synchronous and asynchronous learning, educators continue to develop productive strategies for using IT in education. IT staffing and recruitment is now geared towards teaching in an online environment. Hiring the right IT staff to keep all these whiteboards, smartboards and online learning platforms running is as important as hiring the right staff to teach our children.

• The blend of both synchronous and asynchronous instruction continues to provide the best results.

• Asynchronous learning allows for independent study and conceptual consolidation following direct instruction and exploration.

• Synchronous learning delivers the best classroom “feel” for student engagement, participation, and accountability.

On the cutting edge, educators are beginning to use adaptive learning technologies. Digital tutors embedded in this software provide immediate summative assessment and help learners understand why they may have been unsuccessful in their work.

Educators using adaptive learning technologies can measure student engagement in the learning process and modify their instruction accordingly. Our IT solutions staff in Chicago will keep all these learning technologies running so that there is no interuption in the learning process.

What's New in IT Systems for the Educational Sector?

At the forefront of IT solutions in education is the breathtaking increase of data to manage, move, and protect. This data surge poses severe challenges to local IT staffing managers both in terms of time and resources. Here are some important considerations as you develop and manage your IT systems.

• Cloud Storage vs. On-site Servers

Some educational institution IT managers prefer to maintain on-site servers instead of cloud storage to minimize exposure to the risk of cyberattacks. However, these concerns can be addressed with sound MFA security that implements rigorous password standards and other options. These include security questions, email verification, SMS/text message, hardware tokens, and biometrics. With proper MFA security in place, the cloud is a limitless and safe alternative to local data management. Cloud storage provides cost-effectiveness, scalability, and increased security.

• Wireless Network Bandwidth Needs

As every educator knows, limited WiFi bandwidth has plagued educators and students alike with painfully slow connectivity. Student productivity and institutional security depend upon the perpetual improvement of WiFi networks. Remote learning, in-class learning, and cloud-based learning depend on stable and instantaneous connectivity. The future is digital, and your on-site system needs to offer appropriate WiFi bandwidth to support the needs of your students and educators. Your IT support provider can recommend the ideal options for bandwidth bandwidth to support in-class online learning platforms and cloud storage.

• AI, Augmented Reality, and the Metaverse in Education

While policymakers discuss the costs and benefits of AI in education, we can expect the future implementation of AI-powered learning tools where they complement and enhance student learning.

In addition, the metaverse may soon grace the classroom as virtual and augmented reality allow students to learn from virtual contact with the subject material at hand. The metaverse refers to a highly immersive virtual world where people can socialize, work, and play. It is still under development but may become a reality sooner than we think.

While its full implementation is still in the future, effective management of supportive hardware today will streamline the process should the metaverse become useful for educators and students.

Protecting and Using Student Data in New Ways

Educational stakeholders, especially parents, are primarily concerned with student success in learning. However, learning is not their only concern.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rate of cybercrime has increased by 600%. More concerning is the fact that, in mid-2021, 6.2 million malware incidents occurred in educational institutions, representing 64% of all malware attacks. Additionally, 87% of educational institutions were victims of cyberattacks, with 39% of their users being victimized by phishing.

How can educational institutions protect student data and privacy?

First, shore up your WiFi security. Use best practices for password creation and management. Longer and more complex passwords are generally better. Always enable router encryption and avoid password sharing (or leaving them on sticky notes attached to the monitor). Ensure that your WiFi provider offers secure, encrypted WiFi.

Next, use cloud-based systems for storing class materials, assignments, and data. Ensure that all student data is cloud-based instead of keeping it on a local device. The other advantage of doing this is that students can access their work from any device – not just a particular computer or tablet.

When working from home, use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access school networks. This will encrypt your data and mask your location, protecting both you and your learners.

Encourage your students and teachers to back up their data regularly to the cloud. If possible, set up automatic back-ups to run weekly or biweekly and save their work.

Next, use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for students and staff as they log onto educational portals and administrator systems. Instead of entering a password only, they will also have to answer a security question, provide a PIN, or enter a code sent to their email or phone. This use of a secondary (or even tertiary) identifier will reduce opportunities for data theft.

As always, be conscious of cybersecurity risks. Don’t click on links in email messages sent from unsolicited or unknown senders. Don’t submit sensitive or confidential information on unknown or unfamiliar websites. Be careful about downloading applications from unknown sources on the Internet.

With education’s massive shift towards remote and digital learning, protecting student data has become more challenging over the past two years.

However, you can protect student data and privacy by following best practices and using proven IT solutions for education – cloud-based software, VPNs, and secure WiFi.

Pronix IT Consulting And Staffing

Ponix is busy filling Your IT Talent Needs With Top Tech Talent, Business Process and Digital Technology including in the eduction sector.

PRONIX IT Staffing service is an efficient way to get highly qualified, specialized personnel. Within this model can be significant savings for you! The IT professionals that we source for our clients are vetted and must prove their worth to us, long before we propose that they work with your organization. This process ensures that you get productive, experienced IT specialists that will provide value to you.

Learn how our IT staffing and consulting services in Chicago support you in developing your IT strategy for Education.

Conclusion

Since the evolution of IT is progressing quickly, educational institutions would do well to proactively seek the right IT staff to run our online classrooms behind the scenes. This will benefit both students and educators as they learn, teach, and develop ever-changing skill sets in our digital culture.

We are consistently looking at IT staffing jobs in Chicago as well as in the rest of the United States. Are you looking to implement the best IT solutions for education? Pronix is a Managed Service Provider that offers technological solutions and IT support to make learning effective and fun. Pronix IT Solutions is here to help!