The education industry has come a long way over the years. Further, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the paradigm of teaching and learning has gone through massive innovation. As a result, the education system across the world is no longer confined to textbooks and classrooms but has reached computers and mobile devices. The utilization of advanced technologies such as cloud computing in the education industry and contemporary virtualization has helped learners stay connected from anywhere across the globe. Additionally, leveraging the right technologies helps learner enablement with real-world and career-ready skills.
Top 6 Advantages Cloud Computing in Education Sector
As per the research conducted by the market intelligence firm Markets and Markets, cloud computing in the education market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.6% from 2016 to 2021. Additionally, forecasts about cloud computing for higher education say that it will grow at an estimated CAGR of 25.4% by 2027.
Virtual Classrooms
Cloud-based applications make it easier for educational institutions to have virtual classrooms for the students. The idea helps control the infrastructure, maintenance, and expenses of onboarding teachers in their faculty to a considerable limit. The institutions can collaborate with skilled teachers who work remotely and serve as cost-efficient resources. Concurrently, teachers can create and deliver online study materials anywhere. Leveraging the benefits of
cloud-based software, students can appear for virtual exams from anywhere in the world, saving their time and expenses efficiently.
Easy Accessibility
Having a cloud-based educational portal allows easy access through the internet. Whether you use cloud computing for schools or universities, users can easily access the data such as course details, applications, etc., anytime and anywhere. They can apply to the courses and even participate in group activities. These applications are also available on mobile devices, so you can quickly learn even while on the go.
Cost Reduction
Implementing cloud computing in the education domain allows teachers and learners to obtain considerable benefits. Apart from cost savings on infrastructure maintenance and hiring of teaching staff, shifting to cloud applications as an educational medium allows institutes to save money on registrations and licenses, power, and support. On the other hand, students can control costs by downloading online study materials instead of buying expensive books.
Scalability
Scalability is one of the intrinsic benefits of cloud computing. Cloud software helps scale up the learning applications rapidly without hassle in the education industry. As a result, they can easily accommodate an increasing number of students. Additionally, scalability also enables managing peak utility hours and demand spikes, especially during activities like training registrations, result checking, assignment submissions, etc. Further, the cloud applications can quickly scale down during the standard activity period to avoid wastage of resources.
Real-Time Collaborations
Real-time collaboration is a critical aspect of cloud computing in education. Cloud software provides student communication support, creates teacher management portals, empowers remote learning through virtual classrooms, etc. Students can collaborate with their peers on group projects and assignments.
Cloud technology in education creates a plethora of opportunities for collaboration between teachers, students, and parents and ensures they can stay on the same page.
Extensive Opportunities for The Students
Educational cloud services foster humungous opportunities for students. As a result, they can research more to learn and select their career path as per their choice. Moreover, students can respond to the assignments or share their work with their classmates. Cloud computing for universities and schools facilitates opportunities for students to leverage their selections by demonstrating their learning.
How Blackboard Leverages Amazon AWS and EC2 To Support Virtual Classroom Solutions?
Due to the spontaneous shift to virtual learning in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, education technology company Blackboard required solutions to scale its capacity to fortify their virtual classroom solution. In addition, Blackboard witnessed massive user traffic compared to 2019 that mainly interrupted its services and hampered continuity. Therefore, they needed a more cost-efficient solution.
Blackboard leveraged Amazon Web Services (AWS) for automatic scaling groups and predictive scaling. They also optimized the usage of the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It is a web service that delivers secure, resizable computation in the cloud by automatically shifting its preference to instances. This solution allowed cost savings over similar instances and enabled Blackboard to utilize unused Amazon EC2 capacity and save additional costs.
The pooled effect of AWS and Amazon EC2 enabled Blackboard to scale effectively through the demand spikes. It provided the company a 10 percent performance boost and reduced the costs of internal processes and computations by about 28 percent.
Conclusion
The need for remote learning triggered by the pandemic has majorly driven the revenue of cloud computing. According to Absolute Market Insights, by the year 2027, the revenue share for virtual learning in higher education is expected to grow to $ 53,487.89 million. The statistics prove that the
benefits of cloud-based software for the education sector are immense. As a result, the critical market influencers of the industry are rapidly embracing cloud computing to make their services more efficient. At the same time, the cloud is emerging as the ideal option for students. Now, they can conveniently attend classes and access learning materials at their fingertips from anywhere and everywhere through a robust internet connection.
“Today, computing mainly automates things for you, but when we connect all these things, you can truly start assisting people in a more meaningful way.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Importance of Cloud Computing in Education?
Cloud computing in education allows students, teachers, and administrators to work on the same platform through an internet connection. It will enable students to attend online classes and access study materials anywhere. At the same time, teachers can easily upload learning materials, conduct classes, etc., and the administrators can collaborate to optimize the
usage and strategize to save money.
What Is Education Cloud?
The education cloud is a resolution for an institution to efficiently manage student experience, development, alumni engagement, recruitment of staff, admissions of students, and marketing. This information helps to serve the students’ educational journey rightly.
How is Cloud Computing Used for Higher Education?
One of the critical
advantages of cloud computing for universities is the ability to regulate time and cost. In addition, cloud technology can eradicate the need for specialized legacy software and compatible hardware on individual terminals. As a result, it allows seamless accessibility and scalability.