Safer, More Effective Educational Physical Places and Virtual Spaces Can Be Unified with Unified Communications as a Service

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, nearly every industry was challenged to quickly adopt new technologies and devices into their work lives to keep everything running smoothly throughout the quarantine. The education industry was no exception. Today, 65 percent of teachers reported adapting to use digital learning tools in their classroom every day, 87 percent of teachers reported that they used them at least a few days a week, while only 7 percent said they did not use them at all. 

Schools K-12 and Universities, undergraduate and postgraduate alike, are rapidly embracing technology of all kinds across their organizations for the benefit of everyone involved in the learning process. This widespread adoption of technology, such as Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS), has changed the way students, faculty, parents, and the schools themselves all interact with each other.

The Next Great Educational Experiences - Connecting Campuses across Cloud Communications and Collaboration

UcaaS enables organizations to leverage a variety of communication and collaboration applications and services hosted by a third-party provider, which usually provides higher levels of availability, flexibility, and scalability with the added benefit of greater cost savings. The "as a service" model simply means that a particular technical need is met via a service that is accessed via the cloud. This is popular because the customer enjoys the benefits of a UC platform while the infrastructure is handled by the UCaaS provider. 

The predominant benefit to the use of UCaaS lies in the institution's ability to leverage mobile accessible apps that can be easily updated when necessary. The number of mobile education apps in use has nearly doubled since 2017, as they keep students, faculty, and parents, creating a "smart campus." 

Creating a Smart Campus Allows for Vastly Improved Safety Measures and Procedural Status Updates

To start, and maybe most importantly, these UCaaS enabled apps are crucial in upgrading physical, on-campus security for educational institutions of all levels. UCaaS security initiatives are focused on securing campuses from terrorism and other violent acts and ensuring students' and faculty's safety through mobile applications that keep the community connected and alerted in times of distress.

Schools and universities would have the ability to send out real-time, campus-wide alerts in the scenario of an active shooter, letting faculty and students be aware of the danger immediately. There are even UCaaS enabled mobile apps that offer both students and faculty the ability to instantly communicate emergencies to 9-1-1, on-site personnel, and first responders with the push of a button for an integrated and immediate response.

Once the security aspects are covered, the real-time abilities of UCaaS apps have limitless potential when it comes to on-campus procedures. Whether through text, audio, or video, administration can alert students, parents, and staff of real-time changes to school or district operating information like closures, health alerts, emergency alerts, and more. Faculty and students also benefit, as teachers can send out updates about homework, tests, and class cancellation, so students are never unprepared.

Reliable Web-based Real-Time Communications Platforms Enhance the Connected Student Experience

At Kandy, we see the potential that UCaaS has on the education industry, which is why Kandy delivers an interactive suite of turn-key cloud UC services such as Cloud PBX, Cloud Contact Center, and Cloud Collaboration. Packaged apps, Kandy Wrappers, can then be added to extend those services. Conversely, they can be delivered in concert with existing investments, and rich APIs can bring UC services into web or mobile apps.

On top of this, Kandy also offers Kandy Drops or embedded real-time communications services, which developers can easily and quickly "drop in" to their mobile apps or websites. Adding to the app is as easy as using a hyperlink, a QR code, or adding a button with a few lines of code.  

Though the use of technology in education truly emerged as a safe and viable option for education continuity during the Covid-19 pandemic, even as students and teachers head back to classrooms. The technology has had an everlasting impact on schools of all levels of students.

While in-classroom technology blossomed during the quarantine, it is time educational institutions looked to UCaaS technology, like Kandy's, to improve the security and the pleasure of the learning experience through a smart campus.

Contact Us to learn more about how we have helped our customers and partners build faster solutions with less risk, using UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS on the Kandy platform recognized as one of the world's first and finest.

Or, to chat live with an account representative, click on the image below or scan with your smartphone.