Benefits of Cloud Solutions for Students and School Districts

Virtualization tools and virtual agents are two strong technologies that allow students and staff to access resources at any time and from any location, even when physical campuses are closed or restricted.

FREMONT, CA: Educators have had a challenging year, but the good news is that we've found solutions that will continue to improve learning outcomes, whether schools operate in-person, in a hybrid format, or remotely. More K-12 and higher education institutions have turned to cloud solutions this year to analyze better and promote student achievement while also broadening access to learning and assistance at a lower cost.

Student Success Through Real-Time Insights

Using Google Cloud tools, institutions can make sense of billions of data sets from hundreds of different data systems. From matriculation to graduation, Google Cloud Student Success Services can assist schools at all academic levels in improving the student experience. One school district had a lofty goal of supporting all of its pupils' unique needs. To do so, they needed to have a deeper understanding of their students, which necessitated cross-referencing hundreds of different sorts of data from multiple sources. They were able to extract data from their learning management system, Student Information System, Google Workspace, survey data, and direct input from students and teachers, among other sources, using Student Success Services. They were able to swiftly gather data and draw insights using the Google Cloud product BigQuery to fulfill their pupils' individual needs better.

Improved Learning Opportunities and Support

Virtualization tools and virtual agents are two strong technologies that allow students and staff to access resources at any time and from any location, even when physical campuses are closed or restricted. Even if they cannot be on-site, virtual desktops can connect students, professors, and researchers to the equipment they need. Students, for example, can use virtual laboratories powered by Google Cloud to run high-performance software like Photoshop and AutoCAD natively from a Chromebook. Several organizations are also using virtual agents to provide greater support to their communities by adding support assistants to their websites.

Last year, one school board, like most schools, switched to an online learning platform. Upper Grand received an extraordinary number of inquiries for credible information and guidance from families and students new to remote study. Due to a lack of personnel availability, the schools' administration had to handle technical issues manually, which resulted in longer response times. The team at Google collaborated with them in about three weeks to create a virtual agent trained to answer questions about online safety and technical assistance for online learning programs. The online tool processes thousands of questions every day with a 92 percent accuracy rate and a response time of less than one second.