Back to School Tech for 2015

The 2015-2016 school year is going to be filled with technology, no matter the grade or age. Of course the back to school list will include the usual laptop, headphones and cell phone. Here’s a list of some unique gadgets that will enhance any learning experience.

Any other back to school tech that has caught your eye?

Universities Can Overcome Barriers to O365 Adoption

Migrating mailboxes to Microsoft Office 365 is a daunting task for anyone. However, it’s especially challenging for universities.

Most university IT departments do not have the expertise, budget or resources needed to move what can be tens of thousands of student mailboxes. The result is downtime, productivity loss and lost mail and files for the students or even the inability for universities to take advantage of Microsoft’s free and reduced-cost O365 educational offerings.

This week, BitTitan is enabling universities to overcome these barriers by offering student pricing for its email and data migration solution MigrationWiz. Student pricing is also available for the channel to better serve their university customers.

With MigrationWiz, university IT departments and the channel can seamlessly migrate thousands of student mailboxes from a single cloud-based user interface at drastically reduced costs and migration time. This ensures that educational institutions can take advantage of O365 without any impact on students, while allowing the channel to pass cost savings along to its customers.

For more details, check out the press release here.

Santa Fe Public Schools Brings High-Speed Internet to Seven More Schools

According to the FCC, 68% of districts in the U.S. today can’t meet the long-term, high-speed Internet connectivity needs of students. This is because schools don’t have the right infrastructure in place – and the tight school budgets make upgrades difficult.

To meet their short and long-term connectivity goals and bring gigabit Internet speeds to the classroom, Santa Fe Public Schools recently chose a new type of network technology based on fiber optics from Tellabs, called Optical LAN, for seven more schools. This follows its initial installment in one school in March 2014.

The technology gives teachers the flexibility to tailor classroom and learning tools to evolving student needs and provides students with high-speed access to digital learning tools, including apps, Wi-Fi and cloud-based networking, via computers, laptops and smartphones. On top of that, Optical LAN saves money. In one school alone, Optical LAN cost $60,000 less than the traditional copper-based alternative and is expected to save almost $2.1 million over the next decade. This means the district can use the money where it’s needed more.

For more details, you can read the full release here.