Higher Ed IT Leaders Discuss 2023 Tech Trends – EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12

EDTECH: What trends are driving bandwidth consumption? To what extent do you foresee a need to upgrade the network?

SEIDL:   There are a few trends in the networking space, including continued use of videoconferencing. Where we used to see a small number of virtual meetings a month, they’re almost a default for many faculty, staff and students now. There’s a drop from what we saw at the particular height associated with the pandemic, but the numbers are usually still quite large.

We’re also seeing even more devices. That trend just grows every year — the average person walking around campus is carrying two to three devices connected to the network. Finally, we’re integrating more technology into buildings and spaces. That means more devices consuming a lot more bandwidth.

KOAN:   The need for bandwidth knows no bounds. The traffic seems to expand to fill the size of the particular pipe, no matter how big a person make it.

The particular good news is that we’ve recently been able to connect to the Research and Education Network in our region. Many community colleges are not connected to the  REN in their region , as it’s sometimes seen as something that’s only for larger research institutions. But with the right partnerships, there’s no reason that we can’t also participate.

The Maricopa Community Colleges connected to Arizona’s REN, called the  Sun Corridor Network , in 2021 and that has resulted not only in great connectivity but also in cost savings.

LEVINE:   Just when you think a person have indoor coverage under control, enter the particular great outdoors. Demand for outdoor coverage offers been high throughout the pandemic. The persistent requests have not slowed down since, which provides led us to explore the particular possibility of augmenting our own coverage with technologies like  Citizens Broadband Radio Service   within the future.

We have to factor in the inside, the outside and the emerging  Internet of Things . Reliance on video continues to grow, plus having the band width to consume, broadcast and even edit over the network is increasingly important for teaching, learning, study, operations and student life. So the need for all of us to seek increased capability and pursue upgrades will be constant.

DISCOVER:   Find out about the latest smart campus technologies.

KRAUS:   We were fortunate that, in 2018, we successfully completed an end-to-end network refresh. This included enhanced wireless in our classrooms and residence halls as well as additional capacity and bandwidth. The focus was on the university’s strategic goal of becoming a research-intensive, R2 Carnegie Class institution. That furthermore prepared us for COVID.

We are now fully back upon campus plus have three new home halls and an increase in on-campus students. We have been able to meet the campus demand with regard to connectivity plus bandwidth. All of us do expect in the coming years that our analysis network capability may boost, and we have partnered along with Duke,   Davidson College   and network solutions provider MCNC on two National Science Foundation grants to develop capacity through  NCShare .

EDTECH: What emerging technology trends are you noticing? What’s on the verge of becoming a trend?

SEIDL:   We’re leaning into the  digital reality plus augmented reality spaces   with a new data science building that has a large-scale VR studio. At Miami University, we see VR, AR and data as tightly coupled.

The particular continued integration of additional sensors into personal devices is likely to be a pattern that has interesting impacts upon medical and academic programs. More sensors mean more information, which offers opportunities regarding research, including artificial intelligence and machine learning models. Drones also continue to change how things work. Delivery robots and drone delivery have the potential for unexpected impacts on campuses.

KOAN:   In the past few many years, we’ve already been working very hard in order to build a  data lakehouse   environment, combining a data lake and information warehouse, so that we can leverage the power of device learning plus AI to deliver better insights from the data and better experiences for our college students. That’s part of why it’s so critical to move data to the cloud. We are using cloud-native technologies in  Amazon Web Services   such because Aurora Serverless and S3, so that all of us can innovate with some of our applications and create advanced dashboards to help visualize our large, complex data sets.