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Are you prepared for the education technology revolution?
Thu, 23rd Jul 2015
FYI, this story is more than a year old

In order to embrace the education technology revolution and provide the best experience for learners, schools must address data gaps, says Advanced Learning, the education cloud management system developer.

This is the primary finding of a whitepaper commissioned by Advanced Learning in association with Professor Stephen Heppell, a specialist in the future of education.

As education technology continues to rapidly evolve, cloud-based solutions become more beneficial to educators and learners, Advanced Learning says.

The whitepaper suggests that outdated management information systems (MIS) prevent schools, and more importantly learners, from getting real insight into what drives effective teaching and learning.

The report also highlights that the education sector should learn from other sectors, such as the healthcare industry, in utilising technology to build more transparent learning outcomes.

Heppell says, “Schools are often reluctant to change their existing MIS but need to realise education is entering a decade of remarkable opportunity."

“To avoid being left behind, schools must move away from archaic systems and address major shortfalls in the quality and reliability of their data to enable pupils to realise their full potential.  “Only by making better use of the information they already have, whilst finding ways to harness powerful and untapped data from emerging technologies, will they be able to adopt more effective teaching strategies," he says.

Cloud-based MIS solutions help schools to drive learning by providing teachers, parents and senior leaders with 24/7 access to their academic progress online from smartphone and tablet devices.

Student assessments, exams and behaviour interventions can be easily compared and reported from up-to-date information to identify learners in need of support, says Advanced Learning.

Intuitive reporting analytics also allow schools to swiftly interrogate large volumes of complex data from multiple sources, helping them to identify areas of concern and resolve barriers to learning.

Performance data can then be tracked over time to determine the success of new strategies to aid future planning, according to Advanced Learning.

Greg Ford, Advanced Learning managing director, says, “Missing data can make it hard to track, or acknowledge, a school's effectiveness, which can impact funding.

“Modern MIS systems solve the problem by providing unparalleled intelligence so that schools no longer have to rely on incomplete information.

“Modern cloud technology ensures learner data can be collected from a variety of different sources, where teachers are able to view and understand learners as individuals.”

Cloud-based solutions provide schools with a cost effective and scalable IT infrastructure to meet their growing requirements.

By providing instant access to interactive teaching resources the cloud also offers increased flexibility to support the delivery of effective learning, says Advanced Learning.