Integrate is a consolidated management tool for k-12 schools that combines the most needed components into one easy to use platform.

Integrate School

With the surge in , district leaders have to allocate more resources to cybersecurity programs, leading them to seek concrete proof of their efficacy from CISOs and Technology Directors. cyber events making headlines Additionally, education has undergone a historic digital transformation, which, unfortunately, comes with an increased vulnerability to cyber incidents. Together, these two factors are making cybersecurity a huge concern for schools. With the influx of funding grants, as well as scrutiny of investments, the traditional approach of evaluating cybersecurity success through technical controls or risk management is no longer sufficient. The return on investment (ROI) in school cybersecurity should also be gauged by its effectiveness in enabling the institution's future continuity of service and protection of data. cybersecurity To achieve this, the technology leader and their team must collaborate with other educational executives, including the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), to establish and agree upon cybersecurity ROI metrics. The focus should transition from isolated technical checklists to a comprehensive understanding of the financial and educational impact that the current cybersecurity posture creates and mitigates. Let’s dive into the comprehensive strategy that schools need to take to measure cybersecurity ROI. Understand Your School's Cyber Risk Appetite Schools must identify and quantify their risk appetite by defining acceptable thresholds at both the overall and departmental levels. Technology leadership, be it a CISO, CIO, Technology Director, etc., plays a crucial role here in order to align cybersecurity risks with the school's educational strategy and enable teams to weigh up the benefits of certain strategies against cyber risks. As Deloitte highlights in their , articulating a clear risk appetite allows for informed decision-making regarding new educational initiatives, technology adoption, or changes in policies. report on assessing cyber risks For instance, the sudden shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of evaluating cyber risks associated with strategic decisions. Questions about acceptable losses in the face of cybersecurity incidents become central to decision-making. Clear Metrics To Follow Schools can be forgiven for falling into the trap of just wanting to measure traditional metrics such as the count of blocked malware incidents or data loss prevention events. However, they often lack context. Additionally, even though the percentage of intrusions thwarted by firewalls or the percentage of filtered phishing emails, offer some context through percentages, they present challenges. These difficulties include potential blind spots due to the limited scope of existing monitoring technology and biases introduced by queries reflecting the analytical skills of the architect or user. Instead of just following straightforward metrics, schools need to integrate cybersecurity with the specific needs and budget available. A school could allocate funds to invest in security training, implementing multi-factor authentication, and incorporating systems monitoring and remediation to improve its overall cybersecurity posture. These investments would help to protect their students and staff, ensure continuity of education, and provide a safe and secure learning space, even amidst today’s extended technical environment. Use Benchmarking for Perspective Comparing a school's cybersecurity performance to educational benchmarks provides valuable context. Understanding sector-specific risks, such as budget and IT resources issues, as highlighted in , helps schools determine acceptable levels of risk. Benchmarking also aids in prioritizing resources against likely threats, ensuring efficient allocation of vital security budgets. this CISA report If schools similar to yours are prone to specific threats, your assessment should center on whether your controls and strategies effectively counteract those attack vectors. Regulatory changes can impact the cybersecurity landscape, as seen with the increasing reliance on digital platforms in education. Monitoring benchmarks helps schools stay ahead of emerging threats and potential regulatory requirements. Continuous Improvement Recognizing the symbiotic relationship between cybersecurity and educational strategies is crucial for ongoing success. Changes in one aspect affect the other, necessitating continuous alignment between cybersecurity and educational priorities. The shift to online learning exemplifies the need for adaptable cybersecurity strategies as educational landscapes evolve. Taking the move to online learning that we previously mentioned, in a pre-pandemic world, a school’s primary cyber risks would revolve around malware infecting local workstations and spreading through the network. So, the IT team would prioritize measures such as web content filtering and network segmentation. However, with the shift to remote and hybrid learning, the distributed nature necessitates the technology team to implement zero-trust cybersecurity solutions and devise new methods to prevent infections originating from internet connections outside school networks that bypass district web proxies, firewalls, and content filtering. You should bear in mind that cybersecurity is not about eliminating risk entirely. Instead, it revolves around striking a healthy balance between risk and reward. This allows the school to operate efficiently while effectively managing the probability of risk at an acceptable level. Final Thoughts Cybersecurity ROI in schools extends beyond technical measures and risk elimination. It involves aligning cybersecurity initiatives with educational goals, understanding and quantifying risks, benchmarking against educational standards, and maintaining continuous communication between cybersecurity and academic teams for ongoing improvement. It’s also crucial for schools to understand the probability of likely attack methods so they can tailor defenses, considering the unique risks associated with their location and size. As schools continue to embrace digital transformation, continuous improvement in the symbiotic relationship between education and cybersecurity is absolutely essential.

How To Measure the ROI of Cybersecurity Solutions in Schools

During these pandemic times, one of the biggest concerns for teachers is and keep an eye on their progress from afar. how they will continue to engage students As of today, there are at least 104,000 school closures in the USA affecting 47.9 million students according to . The new reality of school at home is the following - children feel overwhelmed, unfocused and very stressed. Both parents and children had to face a great deal of resistance, weariness, and a drop in motivation. It has become much more difficult to keep engagement at a decent level as the whole system is tiring and unfamiliar for kids and their families. EdWeek What about the teachers? According to the National Center for Education Statistics, , and they were not ready for switching to online methods of education because they lack experience and digital proficiency. more than 30% of American public school teachers are over the age of 50 The online reality that everyone was forced into has intensified problems in interaction and provoked the feeling of social detachment among children and educators. Luckily there are some comprehensive ways that can help teachers, schools and students feel more united and stay engaged during the educational process. Let’s see what are these tech savers of distant learning: Wabisabi is an online community for teachers that allows them to diversify their toolbox and takes the pressure of planning, reporting, and assessing students’ results. This system brings teachers, kids, and parents together to initiate the collaborative learning process. Wabisabi There is a huge number of pressing assignments that teachers have to fulfill. Processes of planning lessons, creating reports, updating curriculum take away the precious time and emotional resources that can be directed towards actual educational processes. In order to minimize organizational pressure that teachers face, created a system of smart planning. Children can show their results in media portfolios and teachers have a set of standards against which students’ performance is checked. This app creates simplified planning and promotes engaging online learning atmosphere. Wabisabi MyWebAR is an online tool that gives educators an opportunity for an early transition to online learning of the future by providing schools and teachers with free access to the entire AR library which includes 3D models and ready-to-use study materials. MyWebAR Launched creators of bestselling AR books DEVAR, utilizes the latest AR technology to help teachers to motivate students and accelerate their learning process by offering a hands-on, interactive Augmented Reality experience via a simple online interface. MyWebAR By leveraging next-level AR tech via the MyWebAR platform, teachers can present their online classes in an efficient way to students during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, after the pandemic is over, schools can also integrate Augmented Reality into their offline, traditional processes via MyWebAR to revolutionize the educational system. Furthermore, after the pandemic is over, schools can also integrate Augmented Reality into their offline, traditional processes via MyWebAR to revolutionize the educational system. Poio by Kahoo Is an engaging learning platform that stimulates education through games. Immersive group work, interactive assignments, and challenging brain teasers help kids of any age become more motivated and involved in the process of learning any subject. Kahoot! is an interactive reading tool that was introduced by in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to help parents teach their kids rules of phonetics and spelling, the company created an adventurous reading game. It doesn’t require any external support and it stimulates curiosity in young kids. Learning is based on engaging and entertaining stories so that kids don’t even notice the educational aspect of it. Poio Kahoot!

How These Tech Solutions May Solve  Challenges That Online Teaching Facing

...and set them up for success In recent years the number of coding schools and bootcamps have exploded, with the number of graduates growing from around 3,000 in 2013 to over 20,000 in 2018 according to an industry report by . Course Report The coding school market is now a $240M+ industry with more than 100 full-time programs in the US and Canada alone. Coding school programs, whether they take place in-person or online, offer students an accelerated and more cost effective path to learn computer programming. And the number of graduating students is rapidly encroaching on the estimated 93,000 students who earned an undergraduate degree in computer science in 2017. While coding schools and bootcamps offer an attractive alternative means of breaking into a technology career, students graduating from these programs enter the workforce with a different trajectory and set of experiences than students graduating from a typical 4-year university. And while many employers are attracted by the possibility of hiring from this new pool of talent, most are still flying blind when it comes to figuring out how to hire coding school graduates and integrate them into their engineering organizations most effectively. We’ve talked to coding school graduates and employers alike to pull together this guide on how to make the most out of hiring coding school graduates. If your company is interested in hiring these students, start here. Understanding the Anatomy of A Coding School The moniker “ ” or “ ” is often thrown around loosely, and the first step in successfully hiring graduates from these programs is to learn the nuances of each—not all coding schools are created equal. coding school coding bootcamp Most coding school programs are unaccredited and vary greatly in duration and format, so begin by getting a sense of the curriculum and rigor required to graduate from any program you are thinking of hiring from. According to , the average coding school program lasts for about 14 weeks and the vast majority of programs meet in-person, although the prevalence of online offerings is growing. On average students pay $11,900 in tution—far below the cost of the typical undergraduate degree—but many alternative forms of financing are becoming available. Course Report Here are a few examples of the different models employed by some of the most popular coding schools. Andela focuses on identifying and training software engineering talent in Africa, before placing graduates in full-time roles on global engineering teams. The company actually pays students throughout the course of their training (there’s no cost to the student), and graduates technically become Andela employees although they work day-to-day on the engineering teams of . Andela Andela’s partner companies Hiring managers interested in hiring Andela graduates must technically become an Andela partner in order to work with their engineers. Lambda School Lamda School offers students the option of completing their program by attending full-time for 9 months or part-time for 18 months. All classes are taken online, and students have the option of either pre-paying for the program or paying nothing up front but then paying Lambda back 17% of their salary for two years once they land a job (payback is capped at $30,000). Trilogy Only about 5% of coding schools or bootcamps are university affiliated, but companies like partner with universities to help them deliver skills-based training programs often through extension school style bootcamps. —a 24 week web development bootcamp offered through the University of New Hampshire. Trilogy Education Here’s an example of one such program General Assembly General Assembly offers perhaps the largest range of coding classes offering both full-time and part-time courses that are available either online or on campuses in major cities throughout the world. Regardless of educational model, more than half of coding schools focus their web development courses on learning full-stack Javascript. HTML and CSS are often also taught as foundational skills, and courses focused on Python and Ruby on Rails are also particularly popular. Understanding the Coding School Student According to a , coding school students range in age from 18 to 75, with the average student being around 30 years old. Interestingly, or higher—many are either trying to level up their technical skills or are switching careers altogether. survey by Switchup 80% of students have already earned a bachelor’s degree Nearly three quarters of students cited career advancement as their reason for attending coding school, and 58% of students had little to no programming experience prior to their entering their coding school program. For employers, this is important context—a vast majority of students are starting the process of learning to code from scratch. The good news? Students are generally getting what they hoped for out of coding school programs and bootcamps. On average, graduates see a salary increase of about $20,000 after finishing their program, raising their salary from an average of $42,000 prior to the program to $62,000 upon completion. This is also important context for hiring managers—while coding school graduates are in most cases relatively junior engineers that will need continued mentorship and training once hired, graduates tend to be hired at very affordable rates compared to more experienced engineers. How to hire the best coding school graduates? Once your company has decided to give hiring coding school graduates a go, the challenge quickly becomes, “OK, but who do we hire?” With more than 20,000 graduating students each year the process of finding your next great developer from within this talent pool begins. 1. Look for Students who Geek Out over Code The hiring process should start by really delving into the reasons that the student wants to build a career in software development—understanding their underlying motivations is the first step in making a great hire. “Look for the really curious, smart and passionate people,” says Jane Jaxon, VP of People at Wistia. “There are people who go to coding school for the same reasons many folks go for a MD, MBA or JD—the potential to unlock a very lucrative career. Pick the curious person who is genuinely passionate about what they do and wants to learn. If they genuinely geek out about the craft of coding, it's a great start!" 2. Create a coding assessment to pre-screen for basic skills While your potential new hire just completed coding school, it’s totally appropriate to pull together your own to validate that graduates have the basic skills that they’ll need to be successful at your company. Make sure that the assessment is delivered in a language that the student learned during coding school, and focus on testing only fundamental concepts. coding assessment Also make sure that students can work within a development environment that they feel comfortable in—you want to give them every opportunity to showcase their skills. While , you’ll find that coding school graduates often embrace these assessments enthusiastically as an opportunity to showcase their new skills and distance themselves from other applicants. coding assessments are sometimes unpopular with more senior engineers This is also a great litmus test for whether or not the potential hire really geeks out on writing code. 3. Start by hiring out of one program With the competition for engineering talent being so fierce, you may be compelled to look into hiring any coding school graduate that finds their way into your applicant pool. While we can’t blame you for giving those applications a look, if you’re just getting started with hiring coding school graduates we’d recommend that you carefully select a particular program to start with and focus initially on successfully recruiting their graduates. This works for a couple of reasons—first off, with programs like Andela your company will become an official partner and will have access to their graduates as a result. Additionally, schools with a model like Lambda School often don’t get paid until they land their graduates a job. With this model, the school itself is highly motivated to find companies that consistently look to hire their graduates. Finally, by familiarizing yourself with a single school you’ll come to get a better sense of what skills their graduates do and do not possess upon graduation based on the rigor of the program and its specific curriculum. You’ll also have the opportunity to build relationships with the school’s staff, and schools quickly become echo chambers when students and staff alike are consistently hearing great things about working at your company from previous graduates. Want to take the relationship a step further? Ask your existing engineers if they would be interested in serving as mentors or even guest lecturers within the program you’ve selected. Some members of your existing team would probably love the chance to help shape the skills of future co-workers. 4. Hire more than one engineer at once While we’re advocating for hiring out of one coding school to start, you should hire more than one coding school grad at a time if at all possible. This is helpful for a number of reasons—to start you simply have a bigger sample size to look at when assessing the skill level of coding school graduates. This helps you avoid false conclusions about the viability of hiring engineers from a particular school based on one really good (or bad) hire. Secondarily, remember that most coding school grads came into the program without any prior programming experience—suddenly being thrust into a technology company and expected to deliver code can be hugely intimidating! By hiring even small groups of students in cohorts, new hires have the comfort of having peers at the same level, which can also create a healthy sense of competition. New engineers will be ready to prove their mettle! Now that we’ve covered how to hire coding school graduates, let’s turn our attention to how they can best be integrated into your existing engineering team. How to successfully integrate coding school graduates within your engineering team You’ve identified a coding school program that you’re ready to turn into a consistent source of junior talent for your engineering team, and you’ve even found a couple of aspiring engineers that you’re ready to bring onboard. Here’s how you can set those new hires up to be successful. 1. A solid game plan requires pre-work This may sound obvious, but successfully hiring junior engineers begins with carefully scoping what you’re expecting to get out of them. Identify work that can be successfully completed by junior developers, and have a realistic model for how long these tasks may take. Use your task management software to label simple bugs and small improvements that would be not only good experience for new developers, but also helps them develop a deeper knowledge of your code base. “They started me out with small tasks for a front-end engineer like, ‘Fix this CSS bug that we have,’ or ‘the product team wants this text changed,’” , a front-end developer who graduated from Lambda School before being hired at . says Chris Atoki Neat “Even though they knew I could change text it was more of just getting in that flow of making a pull request and getting it reviewed and merged. It helped me get a feel for how the code base works. They didn't demand that I start pushing code that first week, it was more of, ‘take your time, it's a huge code base, get familiar with it.'" Talk to your existing team and find senior developers who would like to gain supervisor or management experience, and are willing to step into a mentorship role. They can help you pull together some of the items outlined below—you need to have these items ready before you start hiring. 2. Assign new hires an internal mentor Generally speaking coding school graduates are going to be a better fit at larger companies that have teams of more senior engineers that can help mentor them and level up their skills. If your company is a resource constrained start-up with a development team that doesn’t have time to spend developing junior engineers, chances are your hires won’t be too successful. “I came in pretty confident that I knew the job that I had to do,” says Atoki. “Neat hired me as a junior developer and one of the things they did was assign me to a senior developer that I worked very closely with. I knew React and the front-end technologies pretty well, but he had years of experience with the things that I may not have encountered doing projects on my own, so he was able to fill in those gaps for me.” When bootcamp graduates join your team, assign each of them an internal mentor that they can go to to ask questions and get feedback on their work. After initial onboarding, make sure your new hires have 1-on-1 meetings with their mentor at a minimum of once per week. “Pair bootcamp grads with a great mentor who is interested in becoming a manager,” says Jaxon. “It's a great way to get two people exactly what they need in order to grow their careers and both parties have equal stakes in the success of the relationship." 3. Clearly lay out a professional development plan Remember that coding school graduates will typically have only learned the basics of programming in a particular technology. It’s very likely that your company leverages other technologies or has certain development practices that are critically important to learn in order for an engineer to start contributing in earnest. Whatever those technologies or practices are, clearly outline them for your new hires and present them with a curriculum that they’re expected to follow to continue to level up their skills while on the job. Allocate at least 10% of your new hires’ time to continued professional development—they may think that they just completed coding school, but it’s your job to continue to invest in their education so that your investment in each new hire continues to appreciate and add increasing value to your team. "Don't underestimate the value of time,” says Jaxon. “There's only so much you can learn in such a short period of time and bootcamp grads haven’t had that many opportunities to run into issues and learn from them. Folks with more traditional computer science training likely have the benefit of more time engrossed in engineering problems and have had more learning opportunities as a result. If you view the early employment of coding school graduates as an extension of learning, you'll be much better positioned." 4. Reinforce learning by continually assessing core concepts Your new hires will appreciate that you’ve clearly laid out a professional development path for them—but make sure you have the ability to continually assess and objectively measure their learning. allow companies to continually assess their engineers, providing not only valuable insight into the relative skills of your engineers but also an opportunity to continually reinforce core concepts with new hires. Code assessment platforms like Qualified The team at Andela has started doing this with new hires, with significant success. “For internal leveling, we test learners multiple times,” , Senior Product Manager at Andela. “One use case we tried was testing knowledge and behavioral reinforcements by continuously testing our developers on important use cases like certain types of testing or debugging. says Maya Neria We wanted to make sure that developers are consistently being tested throughout our training program on those things. We saw that Qualified helped with knowledge retention, which was really promising.” 5. Give coding school grads opportunities to immediately contribute to your code base Nobody wants to make it to the big leagues only to sit on the bench—the same is true of software engineers! After completing coding school, students are eager to get to work and put their new programming skills to work—it’s your job to harness that excitement and continue to build on it. While it’s common for junior engineers to start off by focusing on squashing bugs, look to provide opportunities for new hires to contribute new code to your code base as well. It’s probably not going to be your company’s next major new feature, but seeing your first code push go live and seeing customers actually interact with functionality that you built is a high for most engineers that are just getting started. Celebrating small contributions is a requisite step in reaching higher level contributions. 6. Encourage new hires to work on side projects This one may sound strange at first blush, but one of the best things you can do for a junior level engineer is encourage them to work on side projects. While they’re beginning to contribute to your company’s pre-existing code base, encouraging coding school graduates to build a side project has a plethora of benefits. First off, it gives them additional experience outside of working with your code base. They can build a project based on their personal interests, and in addition to writing code will gain valuable experience in requirements gathering and designing a software product from the ground up. They may even choose to build their side project in an entirely different or complementary technology to your own, further diversifying their skill set. Encourage new hires to share their side projects with their mentor or with other engineers on your team during 1-on-1’s or team lunches, or leverage communities like to share their side projects with other developers to get feedback and celebrate milestones. You’re trying to stoke the embers of your new hires’ excitement for programming, and shouldn’t view side projects as being in conflict with their primary role at your company. IndieHackers If you’ve followed the guidance outlined in this guide, your new hire will be appreciative of these opportunities and loyal. 20,000+ coding school grads are looking for jobs… now go get ‘em! As the number of coding school graduates continue to increase, so does the opportunity that your company has to turn these programs into a valuable source of new engineering talent. Going to coding school is an investment each student chose to make in themselves—it’s your job to continue to invest in these individuals so you avoid any failure-to-launch type of scenarios. Pair students that demonstrate basic skills and a genuine passion for coding with a clear professional development path and who knows—your next CTO might just be enrolling in a coding school today.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Hiring Coding School Graduates for Your Engineering Team

Omniversity is the first university in VR, born from the insatiable desire to access forward-looking education in a playful, immersive, sensorial, holistic manner. The initiative combines education and entertainment into edutainment. Designed as a multiplayer VR game app, students of all ages and nationalities can enroll in experiential learning programs across multiple disciplines. The VR application offers learning experiences at scale, enabling every student to have access to music labs, science labs, film labs or to worldwide travelling, and experience things that they wouldn’t have access to otherwise. The modern classroom can have a place for everyone - children and adults from a multitude of cultural and social backgrounds from all around the world. The VR application aims to revolutionize learning beyond basic memorization and observation. The students can interact with the material at their own pace. Each class is designed as an interactive simulation where the player learns by doing. Students are invited to learn about a subject by living it. The Post-Pandemic Context The pandemic has greased the wheels for digital world’s entrée into higher education, disrupting an education system that many assert was already losing its relevance. Schools and universities continue to focus on traditional textual-based academic skills and rote learning, rather than on high level skills such as adaptability, critical thinking, empathy or environmental awareness, which will be more important for achieving success in the future. A lot of current learners have difficulties in comprehending information. Students today declare to feel bored, tired, disengaged, and usually not sure why they are learning about a topic in the first place. Universities are still maintaining high prices for what has become, overnight, a dramatically less compelling product offering. The value of formal education has been substantially degraded. In this context, Omniversity was created as a joint venture of artists, educators and technologists, to offer the long-awaited possibility for learners to study what/when/with whom they wish, achieving a balance between highly personalized learning and collaborative practices. Transdisciplinary Dream Team Freshly created in 2020, Omniversity is a start-up with a global scalable potential. The project is founded by Ioana Mischie (CEO), transmedia artist/futurist, joined by Andra Bria (CPO), product designer and innovator. Both co-founders have connected in San Francisco during a global hackathon where they have received awards for their proposals. With extensive experience in entertainment and creative media, both believe that education needs a boost of playfulness and innovation.  As a multi-awarded writer/director, Ioana Mischie also activated as a Fulbright Scholar at USC -School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, California and is  teaching transmedia arts at UNATC and UBB and leading classes in collaboration with international universities.  Andra Bria founded Craft Product School, a product innovation school, created an Augmented Reality book and leads numerous international workshops on product design. “ .”  believes Ioana Mischie, who initiated the backbone idea of Omniversity. Omniversity is, above all, our manifesto for holistic education. By bringing together the most innovative minds in education, arts, technology, science, storytelling and game design, we are hoping to form not only a pioneering community of experiential-minded students, but rather to facilitate a community of visionaries that might dare to advance humankind “ . “ adds Andra Bria, who leads the product design strategy. The way we educate and retrain ourselves will be increasingly important in a world where knowledge is taken over by machines. How can we make sure that education is augmenting our capabilities, helping us achieve our full potential, and does that in an inclusive, personalized, and last but not least, in a fun and engaging way? These are the questions that we’re trying to answer through Omniversity, and we couldn’t be more excited about this challenge The team is joined by Emil Drăgan as technological strategist and CTO of the start-up, who is a passionate creator of AR and VR and who has signed, so far, numerous immersive projects aiming to upgrade contemporary education. The project relies on an extensive transdisciplinary team. Current status & Call to Action In the current phase of development, the pioneering initiative relies on the input of professors and students worldwide. The team has launched a addressed to all educators and practitioners that aim to translate their practice into enriching immersive experiences. Call for Entries Students that are interested to test the preliminary versions of the tool are invited to register . here The Future of Education: global connectivity, immersion & socialization As numerous institutions and theorists aimed to analyze education in pandemic times, multiple scenarios have emerged. While schools are struggling to integrate hybrid methodologies, there is still a lack of alternatives when it comes to innovative learning. Omniversity gamifies the learning experience while also encouraging real life learning experiences and opportunities and outdoor exploration. The approach is highly modular, allowing virtual classes to be mostly seen as teasers for societal exploration. “ We aim to facilitate a multi-layered understanding of the world and to empower elevated forms of global teamwork. Although VR as a medium is often regarded as a form of profound isolation, we aim to repurpose it as a solidarity engine.” highlighted Ioana Mischie. Omniversity will allow students who are physically distant to experience learning as if they are in the same classroom. The VR application promotes group learning and socialization at an international level: students from diverse regions can come together to discuss, synthesize and learn from one another. At the moment, the initiative is in an advanced development stage, the company actively looking for funding, as well as partnership opportunities with transdisciplinary professionals and learners from around the world. Also published at: https://business-review.eu/remoteeducation/the-future-of-education-is-here-omniversity-the-first-university-in-vr-213979

The Future of Education is OMNIVERSITY: The First VR University

"Artificial intelligence is coming for your job." That's the common media narrative about AI disrupting entire industries these days. But is the threat real or still mostly hype? AI has made undeniable strides, but few established sectors have felt true transformation yet. The promise is appealing - AI that can slash costs, boost efficiency, and think creatively. Companies are scrambling to invest in AI to gain a competitive edge. But while AI can optimize routines, automate simple tasks, and analyze data, it still struggles with flexibility, common sense, and big-picture thinking. Humans remain far better at handling complexity. The truth is that deeply embedded human expertise, institutional inertia, and practical limitations on AI will prevent any overnight revolutions. Real disruption may be a decade or more away. But AI's march appears inexorable, so old-school businesses need to thoughtfully adapt. Companies that strategically apply AI while leveraging workers' strengths will prosper. But those who ignore AI's potential or deploy it carelessly could find themselves in the dustbin of history. AI may not abruptly end your career yet - but the writing is on the wall. AI's Progress in Key Sectors There's no doubt that artificial intelligence has made major inroads across multiple industries. In software, AI techniques like machine learning allow for more automated coding, debugging, and testing. Rather than tedious manual reviews, AI systems can analyze code for vulnerabilities or suggest fixes. AI is also being for automated property valuations, predictive analytics, and client prospecting. In engineering, AI can run physics simulations, optimize designs, and even propose creative new material combinations. Medicine, finance, manufacturing, and other sectors are also eagerly adopting AI solutions. applied in real estate But while promising, these applications face major limitations currently. Most augment rather than fully automate human activities. For example, AI coding assistants still require extensive oversight and training by developers. They cannot reason through complex logic like humans can. In real estate, though AI can aid pricing models, agents provide critical market knowledge and client relationships. Even AI's most advanced capabilities like imitation learning cannot recreate the full scope of human expertise and adaptable skills. These sectors are dipping their toes into AI, but wholesale transformation remains years if not decades away. Why Disruption Could Be Slow There are several key reasons why AI will struggle to rapidly disrupt established industries. Firstly, ripping out and replacing legacy systems and processes requires massive investment and risk. Large organizations are inherently resistant to change. Regulated industries like banking and medicine also face scrutiny from oversight bodies, hindering fast AI adoption. Even if AI solutions can be implemented, they rely on access to vast training data. Most companies lack quality datasets covering the range of scenarios needed. The AI talent pool remains quite limited as well. Demand far outpaces supply for machine learning engineers and data scientists. Furthermore, many important tasks aren't suited for automation. AI still struggles with situational reasoning, empathy, and handling novel problems. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals draw on years of training and experience-based human judgment. Critical thinking and creativity remain human strengths. While AI can complement human skills, it cannot wholly replace jobs requiring adaptability, common sense, and advanced education. Rather than sudden disruption, the gradual integration of AI in supporting human roles is the most realistic scenario in the short to medium term. What’s Happening in The Legal Industry? The legal industry is actively adopting AI, but overall disruption remains gradual. AI-based tools excel at tasks like research, document discovery, and contract review - finding relevant materials much faster than humans. This brings undeniable productivity benefits. Yet that only touches the surface of a lawyer's responsibilities. Representing clients requires advising them on nuanced legal strategies while arguing persuasively in court. AI cannot replace those interactive human skills. Full legal automation also faces scrutiny over ethics and removing human accountability. If AI systems are involved in courtroom decisions, how can bias be prevented? And who is responsible if an AI tool makes an error with severe consequences? Lawmakers and the public are wary of ceding too much legal judgment to "black box" algorithms. While AI will continue handling routine casework, lawyers provide the reasoning and responsibility required for sound legal decisions. Significant regulatory and ethical considerations will prevent AI from wholly automating legal work for the foreseeable future. What’s Happening in The Manufacturing Industry? Manufacturing was an early adopter of automation via robotics. However, most assembly lines still require considerable human involvement. AI helps optimize manufacturing workflows - predicting equipment maintenance needs, analyzing supply chain issues, and adapting to disruptions. Yet current robots lack the dexterity and judgment to handle fine assembly. They can repeat rote tasks but cannot reason through complex manufacturing processes. And given the expense of re-tooling assembly lines, full automation is prohibitively costly for most manufacturers currently. Maintaining production quality also remains a very human task. Humans excel at fine sensory perception, allowing real-time quality checks. If defects arise, only human technicians have the adaptability to halt production, troubleshoot issues, and implement fixes. While AI can augment humans by spotting patterns in production data, it cannot replace their intuition and on-the-fly problem-solving skills. Rather than AI abruptly replacing factory workers, a collaboration between AI systems and skilled human technicians will drive optimal manufacturing performance over the coming years. Preparing for Disruption Companies shouldn't bury their heads in the sand - AI adoption is steadily increasing. But they also can't believe the hype that AI will imminently transform their industry. The prudent approach is pragmatically identifying areas where AI could augment human efforts over the next 5-10 years. Realistic roadmaps for AI integration should be drawn up focusing on hybrid human-AI approaches. Rather than framing AI as a replacement for workers, companies should encourage collaboration between staff and AI systems. Workers' skills and institutional knowledge remain vital assets even with AI in the mix. Organizations should also invest in change management and training to help employees adapt as AI takes on certain tasks. With careful planning, AI can boost productivity and innovation rather than simply eliminating jobs. Maximizing AI's potential requires organizational changes too. Companies need to break down data silos, improve data governance, and address biases in datasets. Scaling AI also means establishing robust model monitoring to spot errors and maintain quality control. While it takes investment and commitment, companies that build a thoughtful foundation for AI integration will gain a long-term competitive advantage. Key Takeaways: Can AI Really Shake Up Old-School Businesses? The specter of makes flashy headlines. But the reality is far more nuanced. AI is making inroads, yet still has major limitations. And industries have inertia that prevents overnight disruption. This context is key for business leaders weighing AI investments. AI displacing human jobs Rather than either AI hype or doomsaying, pragmatic assessment is needed. AI can generate huge value - if thoughtfully implemented and combined with human expertise. Companies that dismiss AI risk obsolescence. But those expecting AI to magically transform industries soon will also be disappointed. Patience, strategy, and vision are required to integrate AI successfully. The upshot? AI will substantially reshape business and work over the long term. But its march into daily life will be steady, not sudden. With measured optimism, proactive planning, and savvy execution, companies can harness AI to amplify human potential. The future remains bright for both machines and people. But only by working in concert.

Can AI Really Shake Up Old-School Businesses?

After looking at n and we could learn from it, let us now focus on we can learn it. SQL’s impressive 50-year reig what how Not only is SQL everywhere, but it is also in high demand. A quick search of job boards easily reveals not only that virtually all of the S&P 500 companies are hiring for SQL skills, but that the demand for them is even higher than more “high-tech” languages like R and Python. With such great demand, it should be obvious that this “ancient” language is being taught far and wide to everyone starting as early as possible. Surprisingly, this could not be further from the truth. This article will discuss the wide-ranging benefits of learning SQL, how we can transform the current curriculum, and the drastic split from coding that will have to happen. The merits of learning SQL There are many advantages to learning SQL other than just being able to handle your own ad-hoc data queries. I am not planning to make a comprehensive list here, but some of the most obvious benefits are: Easy to learn SQL is very easy to learn and does not require an extensive computer science education to understand. At the same time, it does teach some of the basics of programming and can be used as a springboard to learn other languages such as JavaScript or C++. Used Everywhere A quick search through postings on your favorite job site will quickly confirm that SQL is truly everywhere. Doesn’t matter if you are looking at established tech companies, rising startups, or Fortune 500 giants. The odds are that they are looking for at least a Data Analyst with basic SQL skills. SQLs grasp on society is truly astonishing if you give it a good look. It effectively acts as a minimum requirement for any data-related job imaginable. High Demand Once mastered having SQL skills increases your marketability for an entire host of professional roles. From Back-end Developers to Data Scientists most employers value these skills. In fact, so much so that you will have to be careful that it doesn’t turn into your full-time job regardless of your other qualifications. Many highly skilled PhDs have been caught in a position where years of research are being trumped by their SQL in the job market. Top Data Language Even though it is fairly easy, SQL includes many powerful features and allows you to retrieve data from many different databases, which makes it incredibly versatile. This is why it ranks even higher than Python for data-related jobs. Future-Proof Lastly, we can also be fairly certain that SQL has a secure future. This is due to a variety of complex reasons which I discussed in , and if you still aren’t sure just check what the my last article experts are saying. SQL is more than just a ‘job skill’ All this talk about SQLs high demand in the corporate world still misses the larger picture. Knowing how to write emails is a skill that extends far beyond its obvious uses inside an office. The same way data collection goes far beyond its job-related use cases. At its core SQL is the basic vocabulary of one of the most essential skills in the digital world we live in now, and is set to become one of the basic tools of existence in the modern world. The everyday individual will create and digest ever-increasing amounts of information in their everyday life. As we produce and collect more and more data, we will either develop the skills to own and control it or be forced to rely on third parties to control it for them. SQL doesn’t go all the way when it comes to empowering individuals with their data, but it goes far enough to make a difference. This is why educators around the world would be wise to rethink their priorities and start preparing their pupils for a world where being able to efficiently query large databases is as important as having proper grammar. This, by the way, is not just restricted to SQL. Being able to use APIs, visualization software such as Tableau and Power BI, and other query languages such as R’s tidy models should be included in this debate. SQL Education Today: Strengths and Weaknesses Considering the widespread and intense demand for SQL jobs and the increasing importance of data in our everyday life it makes sense to inspect how it is taught today. At this moment most SQL skills are either being taught on the job or through various online classes or educational camps. It won’t take anyone long to find at least a dozen . Many of them are paid but even more of them are free, some just cover fundamentals, and others apply them to real-world problems, and a lot of them are very good while others just fall flat. While they vary greatly from each other this is certainly the most dominant form of SQL education available today. Let's take a good look at their strengths and weaknesses. different SQL courses online The Good The biggest benefit from this is that anyone who has a computer, Wifi and a will to learn can very easily get started and go very far. This still excludes a lot of people of course, but in terms of educational accessibility, it is one of the most inclusive technical skills on the planet. The Bad While online courses and classes can take you very far in SQL a lot of them lack the job-specific training that employers are really looking for. SQL courses can take you very deep into the technical aspects of the language, but real-world problems often require experience and domain-specific knowledge. This is hard to teach general courses and can only be attained by doing it every day as part of your projects. The Ugly Even though it is under intense demand and widely accessible to learn still far too few are learning SQL. This is due to general ignorance about its power and misconceptions about its applications and difficulty to learn. Many "non-technical" people would have no issue picking up SQL alongside their other skills, but are deterred because they equate it with other ‘hard’ coding languages like C or Java. Reimagining the SQL Curriculum Skills such as writing emails or working with PowerPoint presentations have already been integrated into some Middle School curriculums, and teachers aren't completely unaware of the technological challenges their pupils will face after graduation. That being said, educators have always been very slow to adapt to changes in and the new challenges created by a digitized world are very hard to predict. That is why I want to imagine a new School Curriculum that develops those skills needed in a world ruled by data. So, when is it too early to start learning SQL? I obviously think there is no such thing as too early, but I might be an outlier. Taking a more conservative approach early High School is probably a good time for one’s first SQL Query. That doesn’t mean however that we shouldn’t start teaching kids how to interact with data much earlier. Pre-K through Grade School What sort of data skills should we be teaching kids that are just starting their educational path in life? At this stage, it is crucial to develop the visual perception and foundational logic that is necessary to make sense of the world. This can be done using games, drawings, and puzzles. There really is no need to confront young kids with the complexities of data structures, but simple coloring exercises can already lay the groundwork for what will be the underlying logic behind Joins and other SQL operations. Visual tools like Venn diagrams and exercises centered around recognizing patterns and groupings build the skills that end up supporting higher-level skills necessary for complex queries. Even more important than that, these early years are key to fostering the minds that are accustomed to certain sets of questions when the time comes. Middle School Middle School might also still be a bit too early to be having to write Select statements, but given how technology savvy these new generations are they would certainly be capable. This is why it would not be a stretch to teach them basic Set Theory, which underlies not just the logic of data structures, but all of the Mathematics. Kids start learning basic arithmetic much earlier, and simple logical puzzles using sets and their intersections would not look out of place in any Middle School math class. High School SQL is already taught in High Schools around the world, but those that do tend to be very specialized engineering or CS schools. That certainly has to change if we want to equip these young adults with the necessary job and life skills to succeed after graduation. With many Tech companies dropping the College requirement a High School senior with 4 years of SQL experience wouldn't be out of place in any of those positions. If SQL were to be included in HS curriculums around the nation, even if only as higher-level electives, it would change the job market as a whole and increase Human Capital tremendously. Higher Education My stances on early SQL education might be controversial so far, but I hope that most of the readers of this post would agree that some basic electives in SQL would certainly help this next generation of young adults entering the job market. In an ideal world, this would be taken far beyond basic queries, and include more advanced topics such as database design or even NoSQL formats. However, the most important change has to be who is taught SQL and not just when it is taught. As described earlier in this post SQL confers benefits on not just those seeking a career in tech, but is a widely desired skill across the board. The Big Split: "Querying" vs "Coding" To achieve its goals SQL would be best served if it found a way to differentiate itself from coding in general. The distinction won’t be clean, but to help the adoption of mainstream curriculums SQL will need to remove the conception that it is necessarily part of a Computer Science education. Coding languages and query languages have many things in common, but their goals are often radically different. Coding seeks to directly interface with machines while the goal of querying is to interface with the information that is stored in databases. Both coding and querying will be crucial skills in the coming decades, but they are so radically different that their continued meshing will only continue to confuse the general public and slow the adoption of both. SQL for Everyone: What all needs to change We started this post by outlining why SQL is a must-have skill for just about anyone, not just people working in tech. This is because it is the #1 data-related skill both in demand and usefulness, and we are living in an evermore digitized world. We then took a look at what is good and bad about SQL education right now and found that even though it is already very accessible much more needs to be done. One thing that we could do is integrate data-related skills into every level of education. This would tremendously boost the skills of the next generation. That might be hard to accomplish though if we don't change how SQL is perceived by the public. That is why I introduced the concept of splitting "Querying" from "Coding". This would benefit both of these related but separate skills, and boost acceptance from the non-technical part of the population. One Last Thing SQL is one of the most ubiquitous programming languages today, but its influence could be even greater. Once we change how it is taught to and perceived by the public it will become a basic tool of existence on par with writing emails and creating spreadsheets. I've shared my thoughts on what changes could be made to our SQL education to make it even more inclusive by including it in a general educational path and splitting it off from coding. There is one more important technology that can help in improving how SQL is taught today. - Learning to work with databases is becoming an increasingly collaborative process as more people are getting into SQL. Students need to be able to work together on the same problem. Debugging queries and analyzing data as a team is a norm rather than an exception when it comes to SQL. SQL Editors About The Author Arctype has built a collaborative SQL editor that allows you to easily share databases, queries, and dashboards with anyone. Join our growing community and try out Arctype today. Previously published at https://arctype.com/blog/reimagining-the-sql-curriculum/

SQL and Database Management Skills Should Be Introduced Into School Curriculums

Are Khan Academy/Tech And Private Schools A Part of The Problem?

Image by: opensource.com 1 year ago we have started from scratch in our school IT infrastructure. More Open Source software (OSS) on our servers and clients was the plan. Did it work out? Was it the right way to go? Isn’t Open Source not more expensive in the end? The situation I’m a teacher in a small international school in Asia. Our IT infrastructure was quit simple and set up and maintained by an IT company in our city. We had an old Windows 2003 server running an AD, some switches, access points, a captive portal and for all of this just one IP subnet. There was also a small computer lab with computers running Windows XP in kiosk mode. If someone needs a new software on this computers or you wanted to install updates, you had to go from one computer to the next because there was no central configuration management. The contract with the IT company was going to end soon and there was no interest to extend it. So we made a plan and set some goals. Here are some of them: separate LAN from WLAN traffic central user management (we had that already, but Windows Server 2003 needed to be replaced) backups central configuration management (server, clients) reduce license costs all in all a reliable network (we have power failures here) The school board instructed me with this, because our IT manager was leaving an the end of the school year and a new was supposed to start some months later. When you want to make such a big change in a school you have to do it in the breaks (especially summer breaks). Let’s start When you start to use OSS you have a problem, because there are many options available to solve a problem. Which operation system should I use for the server or clients? And then the question which distribution to use… Which software for user management? What kind of configuration management? What to take for virtualization? And so on. That’s not easy. A lot of research and testing is necessary. One the other hand there are people out there who had to solve very similar problems. So I’ve asked other IT managers in our city who work with OSS solutions or reached out to people on the Internet, read a lot of stuff in forums, blogs and reddit, tested some solutions and finally decided for one. and his love for OSS in schools were a great inspiration for me. Charlie Reisinger The main part in a school infrastructure are the user management and user authentication. My options were , , Windows Active Directory and . I’ve tested freeIPA and it looked very promising, plain OpenLDAP was to much work for a summer break, I skip Windows AD, because I was curious if it is possible to run a school completely with OSS. freeIPA OpenLDAP Linuxmuster Linuxmuster is a German software solution for schools, existing for more than 15 years and developed by one of the 16 states to have an easy to use solution for their public schools. It is not know to much outside of Germany. Most of the documentation is in German (although quite some is , too. They also have a ), but the community is really great. I’ve never met such a helpful community where you can ask all kind of question related to school IT. available in English English subforum Linuxmuster is more than just user management. They have have developed a great tool, called LINBO ( nux etwork ot), to manage all workstations in a very easy an convenient way. Basically you set up on workstation like you want to have it, make a master image and deploy it to all other computers. Done. That works really well for linux images, because they work on all kind of different hardware. Currently we have just one Ubuntu image (around 4GB) that we use for all of our school computers. LINBO is able to handle dual boot system, too so e.g. in our computer lab we now run both Ubuntu and Windows 10. Deploying Windows works the same way although the image is much bigger and if you have lots of different hardware you may need several images. And there is a another great feature. Its called “self healing workstations”. When you deploy an image to your computers a copy of the image is stored in a cache partition. So when a student messed up a computer or something else happens, you can press a button in LINBO and the computer is set back to the predefined state. It works offline, too. Thats a really important feature in schools where lots of students use a computer lab. LI N BO LINBO main screen The nice thing is, that you can automate this whole process. Wouldn’t it be nice if all computers in a lab are “fresh” and in the state you like to have it every morning? No problem, make a cron job, let them wake up (WOL) every morning, check if a new image is available on the server and then sync them. LINBO was actually the main point why I’ve decided for that solution. It’s sad, that it is not known much outside of Germany. But there are other great features, too. They have a feature called postsync. There you can make changes to an image, after you deployed it. For example you like to have another setup for the teachers computer in the lab or for a computer in the library. You can still use the same linux image, but change some other files after the sync (like desktop shortcuts, configuration files, …). They also have a web interface where teachers and admins can manage the whole product. Teachers can turn on/off the Internet or a web filter for their lessons or a specific group of students. They can distribute and collect files and so much more. So the important part was done. I’ve set up some other helpful OSS to make the life easier for me and our new IT manager. Here is short list what software we use for our infrastructure: (Firewall), (user and client configuration management, they use SAMBA and OpenLDAP behind the scenes), (helpdesk), (Wiki), (monitoring), (library), (main server and client OS), (virtualization), (XenServer management and backup). pfSense Linuxmuster OSTicket Dokuwiki OMD/Check_MK Koha Ubuntu XenServer XenOrchestra A year later When I look back I have to say that in many many areas it worked out very well. We now have a school network that is easy to manage, reliable and also easy to extend - at no license costs. The great thing about OSS is, that your are able to modify it and adjust it to your needs. We are living in a country where we have to struggle with air pollution every year. So one of our teachers bought a sensor, we set up a raspberry pi to measure the pollution and a student build a nice website to display the data on our monitors in the auditorium or kindergarten. That’s great and I like to have more of that, because there are so many learning possibilities in the nature of OSS. Open Source and schools are a best fit. Another example. We use for our library and for me it is one of the best OSS projects. It powerful, easy to adjust and easy to use. Our staff love it. In Germany there is an online platform for students where they can answer questions to the books they’ve read ( ). Our books have a little crow sticker on the back if a quiz for that book is available on Antolin. With little effort I was able to integrate the little crow in Koha’s OPAC so students and parents immediately see online if the book has a quiz or not (including a link to the quiz). Koha Antolin Antolin’s crow in search result But… … isn’t there a downside of using OSS? It’s hard for me to answer this question with a strait yes or no, but there are for sure some things to consider. OSS is normally free, that means you don’t have to pay for licenses and you can adjust the software to your needs. IMHO the cost for OSS are kind of hidden. These hidden costs are e.g. the knowledge how to setup every component and configure it, so everything plays nice together or that it is difficult to find the right IT people who are willing to learn new things and deal with the command line. This is especially difficult in Asia, but luckily we found someone who is able to continue our “open journey”. There are also lots of prejudices from people who are used to windows and don’t like to learn something new. This doesn’t matter much for our students because for all what they do (mostly) they just need a browser. Today the OS isn’t as important as it used to be many years ago. Conclusion Was it worth to set almost 100% on OSS? For me I can answer this question with a clear “Yes”! We saved several thousands dollar this year a alone and can invest this money in good hardware or other things we were not able to buy before. The biggest issue in my view is to find the right passionate people to administrate and further develop an school infrastructure that runs with OSS only. Luckily we found one. Are you using OSS in your company/school? What are your experiences? Where do you see the main (dis)advantages of using OSS? This article was first published on openschoolsolutions.org

INTEGRATE SCHOOL

integrateschool.com

1-10 employees

Since 2015

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INTEGRATE SCHOOL

integrateschool.com

1-10 employees

Since 2015

COMPANY RANKING

INTEGRATE SCHOOL

EVERGREEN INDEX #6338

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