This is an excerpt from our ebook "How to Create Great Learning Experiences and Optimize Education Administration with Technology." You can read the other excerpts below:
- Why Having a Unified Platform for Online Learning Matters
- Why Teachers Should Leverage AI & Micro-Learning While Remote
It is almost impossible to predict what "normal" will be in the post-pandemic world. In some regions, it is likely that school closures with students learning remotely will recur or continue.
That means online learning will be critical to mitigating risks and ensuring the continuity of learning operations. But there are other important reasons to use technology and modern collaborative platforms to optimize education administration.
1. Reducing Cost and Future Proofing
Consolidating to a single platform for learning and assessment can also simplify administration and reduce licensing costs. Many organizations are already using Microsoft 365, so it makes sense to maximize the value of that asset. It can also simplify support as IT teams won’t have to support multiple tools and users will benefit from a unified user experience instead of having to learn and interchange between multiple tools.
Microsoft 365 has one of the largest development teams in the world and is continuously innovating in the digital collaboration space. Whereas investment in a separate learning platform could become obsolete in the future, the continued investment by Microsoft offers assurance that the tools you use today will be there tomorrow and beyond.
2. Assessing Course/Program Efficacy
AI can also be used to improve scheduling and analytics can help to assess not only how well individuals are learning, but the efficiency of the program/course overall. Lecturers, tutors, instructors, professors, and other educators can also receive detailed feedback on what parts of their course work best with students, so they can focus their course design efforts more precisely and address opportunities to improve learner outcomes.
3. Marketing Operations and Connecting Across The Entire Student Lifecycle
Educational bodies are no longer just focusing on the students while they are enrolled. Student records systems have evolved to take a lifetime view of the student journey. That covers everything from enrolment through to their careers as alumni. This ensures that they maintain a long-term relationship and can support students with new programs beyond the initial scope of their enrolment.
This is critical to ensure strong fundraising operations which are a critical revenue stream for many higher education institutions as well as strong industry partnerships which are important for internship and career placement programs. It also provides a fundamental platform for alumni networking and communications.
It’s not only important to continue relationships once a student has matriculated but to be able to establish relationships with prospective students as they evaluate their education options.
Just like students have had to deal with a poor disjointed online learning experience, admissions staff have been forced to patch together numerous disparate marketing tools to execute what should be simple student promotion and communication-related tasks. Modernizing this infrastructure has never been more important as more prospective student touchpoints and information sources move from physical to digital.
Want more insights on reaching prospective students? Read the full ebook here!
