The education landscape is evolving to an unprecedented digital world. While there are many benefits, the digital transformation also brings new complexities. As classrooms get smarter, security risks increase, which is why network monitoring tools can help keep them on track. Check out what are the current IT trends in education and how monitoring software can help!

1. Deep Learning and Digital Books

Educational IT infrastructure strongly supports immersive learning that uses technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed Reality (MR), and 3D simulations to deliver unprecedented interactive educational experiences. In higher education, immersive learning requires specific training and simulation programs. Examples are in healthcare, aviation, and engineering. 

Challenges Faced

The implementation of immersive learning and digital books faces several challenges, among which are:

• Bandwidth consumption: downloading digital book content, streaming video material, using data-intensive AR, VR. and MR applications require high bandwidth.
• Wi-Fi congestion: local Wi-Fi connectivity can be a bottleneck due to the large number of devices accessing the same network. 
• Latency sensitivity: immersive experiences demand that the network always has low latency. If there is any lag or jitter, it will ruin the user experience.
• Asset management: the more assets that are deployed, the more complicated management becomes. 

How Network Management Software Can Help

Network management solutions can help by:

• Traffic monitoring: detailed traffic analysis highlights network utilization, congestion, and bandwidth bottlenecks to inform capacity planning. 
• Historical utilization: long-term usage reports help model growth and forecast future infrastructure needs. 
• Device tracking: locating agentless devices and inventory simplifies asset management. 

2. Game-based Learning

Game-based learning utilizes various video game elements such as missions, rewards, avatars and leaderboards to improve student engagement, motivation and learning outcomes. Well-designed educational games encourage critical thinking skills, problem solving and collaboration. 

Challenges Faced

Despite their appeal to students, there are certainly challenges faced, namely:

• Bandwidth usage: educational games are data-intensive and demand huge bandwidth which can strain network capacity. 
• Frequent updates: games require constant software, security, and content updates that also consume bandwidth.
• Performance may slow down: interactive games risk the network slowing down. 

How Network Management Software Can Help

Network management software can help with these challenges by:

• Network mapping: can automatically inform mapping for capacity planning and optimization.
• Traffic monitoring: to quickly highlight congestion and bottlenecks in real-time.
• Threshold alerts: customized alerts will notify IT teams of inadequate performance metrics. 

3. Blended Learning

This learning method allows students to supplement classroom teaching with online materials and activities. For example, students can watch video lessons at home, then in the classroom engage in group projects and discussions with other students. 

Challenges Faced

In supporting blended learning, the challenges faced are:

• High bandwidth applications: video conferencing, streaming, and collaboration tools require high bandwidth consumption, which can eat up network capacity.
• Need consistent access: blended learning requires continuous internet, Wi-Fi and mobile networks. 
• High uptime demand: there can be no network downtime in blended learning. 

How Network Management Software Can Help

Network management platforms can help blended learning by:

• Reporting features: e.g. historical utilization reports that can help map bandwidth requirements. 
• Custom notifications: intelligent thresholds provide alerts before performance issues interfere with learning.
• Wireless analytics: remote access monitoring and troubleshooting ensures connectivity is everywhere. 

4. BYOD

Bring-your-own-device is a policy implemented in the world of digital education. Students bring their own gadgets that are connected to the school network for educational purposes. However, there are also schools that provide uniform devices for all students. 

Challenges Faced

Although BYOD is beneficial because students can learn more easily with their own gadgets, there are certainly some challenges that must be faced. Among them are:

• Device identification: since students bring their own gadgets, the network needs to identify, secure, and control unrecognized personal devices. This is not an easy task. 
• Wireless congestion: an influx of personal devices that rely on Wi-Fi can cause network congestion. 
• Security risks: there is always the possibility of an insecure device and this becomes the responsibility of network security. 

How Network Management Software Can Help

Network management platforms provide visibility and control to minimize risks, by:

• Tracking devices: device identification takes inventory of equipment connected to the network. 
• Wireless analytics: monitoring, analyzing, and troubleshooting improve Wi-Fi capabilities.
• Access control: segmentation and restriction of BYOD access to appropriate network resources. 
• Traffic monitoring: behavioral analysis discovers anomalies and risky BYOD activities. 

5. Internet on Things (IoT)

More and more schools are deploying IoT solutions to increase efficiency, security, sustainability and improve the overall student experience. Some examples of IoT in schools are security cameras, access control systems, lab condition monitors, sensors in parking lots, and many more. It is predicted that IoT in education will grow even more in the future. 

Challenges Faced

IoT devices offer many benefits to students and schools. But of course, there are some challenges that must be faced, including:

• Device deployment: the sheer number of connected endpoints makes monitoring and managing the IoT ecosystem more difficult. 
• Data deluge: IoT sensors and solutions generate huge amounts of machine data that must be analyzed. 
• Old protocols: many restricted IoT devices still rely on old protocols such as SNMP and BACnet. 

How Network Management Software Can Help

Reliable monitoring tools provide real-time visibility and control to help IoT deployments by:

• Custom mapping: visual mapping of IoT relationships and infrastructure dependencies that help IoT run smoothly. 
• Device identification: agentless device discovery and classification inventories all IoT devices.
• Traffic analysis: behavior analysis finds anomalies and protects IoT data flows. 
• Legacy protocol support: monitor and manage SNMP, BACnet, and other legacy protocols. 

The development of technology in the world of education needs to be supported by powerful network monitoring tools. Netmonk comes as a reliable network monitoring solution, because it has been used by more than 1000 companies. Find complete info on the Netmonk web now!