Connected Classrooms: The Future of Education Technology

As a parent to two kids in elementary school, I’m continually amazed at how quickly teachers and students are using technology to effectively teach and gain new 21^st Century skills. Instead of being bombarded with handouts every week, I receive only the ones that require my attention and acknowledgment; all other communication is through email or educational apps. For example, my kindergartener’s teacher uses Seesaw to share my son’s work in the classroom with me. Changing from asking “What did you do at school today?” to saying “I love what you did at school this week!” always brings a smile to his face. Increasingly, schools are recognizing the value of using the network as a platform for enriching the learning environment and enhancing communication. As new media-rich education and applications are developed and used, our job is to help schools establish an infrastructure with the performance, reliability, and flexibility these new tools require. Our goal for education customers is to equip them with the rock-solid network foundation they need to support current and future applications, so they can enrich the learning and communication experience. Brocade Ruckus switching and wireless solutions are playing an integral part in K-12 schools:

• Brocade Ruckus Switches with PoE: Simplify wireless deployments and have the capability to carry all the user data, plus multimedia traffic.
• 10 Gigabit Ethernet: Enables schools to easily support streaming video, VoIP and other bandwidth-intensive applications that are becoming commonplace.
• Reliable Wi-Fi: Ruckus wireless LAN solutions enable schools to cost-effectively implement faster, more secure and more dependable wireless connectivity.

When the time comes for infrastructure planning or upgrade, we often hear from our customers that they have to plan years out knowing they likely will not be able to replace whatever switch gets chosen initially. We get it, so we future-proof your network to support new advances in Wi-Fi technology and education applications. The  new Ruckus ICX 7150 Switch is packed with features required to support 21^st Century schools without the exorbitant price tag. Significant features include:

• Stacking: Stacking up to 8 switches simplifies management and provides redundancy.
• Upgradable 1G to 10G uplinks: These license upgradeable (SFP to SFP+ uplink ports) enable schools to easily connect a wide variety of cables to extend switching functionality throughout the network.
• High PoE capacity: Makes the installation and distribution of network connections simple and effective.
• Full-features L3 support: Depending on your network topology, this can improve VLAN performance.
• Hot-insertion and removal of stack members: Simplifies operations and reduces downtime.
• Auto-configuration: Ensures error free configuration and accelerates deployment.
• Fabric Architecture: Enables an easy transition to Brocade Campus Fabric for network automation and management simplicity.

The ICX 7150 is a powerful switch for today’s modern school networks. All of us at Brocade Ruckus are excited to continue offering a high-performing and reliable edge portfolio for our education customers. What brings a smile to my face is seeing our students, teachers, and parents reaping the benefits of a robust network.