Vertical Corner: Meeting the Needs of Today’s Educators

These days, from elementary school to university, educators and students are utilizing the latest in technology to facilitate and enhance the learning process. To keep their learning levels top-notch, educational institutions are adopting the latest technologies to keep their students competitive and help prepare them for successful careers.The Show Must Go OnDue to circumstances outside a teacher’s control, school days may be canceled or lesson plans  may need to be shifted. Houston Christian High School deals with this issue regularly due to severe weather during hurricane season that causes delays or school day cancellations. The school uses Egnyte as a key tool in its disaster preparedness planning.

Houston Christian installed Egnyte Desktop Sync on all staff and teacher laptops. Desktop Sync provided teachers with quick, local access to all of their files while maintaining fast, efficient data backup. In the event of a hurricane or other severe weather, they can work remotely without interruption to their workflow."Moving our files to Egnyte has enabled us to increase the flow of communication between teachers and students,” said Michelle Vaughn, director of technology at Houston Christian High School. “We hope to teach our students to be leaders in technology in their schools, and Egnyte gives us one way to do so."Eliminating Rogue Cloud StorageFor the fast-paced university environment, educators and administrators require quick access to data for sharing files inside and outside of the university. Unapproved and insecure cloud solutions are commonly used for submitting paperwork and sharing documents between teachers and students, which can put a university at security risk. Trevecca University in Tennessee decided they needed a secure solution for sharing documents so they switched from consumer cloud offerings to Egnyte, which enabled them to set a standard for  file sharing. Egnyte provides the school’s IT department with control and visibility over its data yet still allow users to easily share files when and where they need them. Paul Maune, technology coordinator at Trevecca University, said that Egnyte enables his staff to monitor files and assist employees in resolving their issues. The centralized administration and reporting capabilities provides his team with peace of mind because they know their files are secure.Breaking Down the Distance BarriersEducators and students are always on the move. Westmont College in California is a great example of this since it has teams that travel constantly and some that always work on campus. To bridge the gap and keep everyone on the same page, the college implemented Egnyte for all of its file sharing needs - from accessing data both in the cloud and behind the firewall in its on-premise managed SAN. No matter where Westmont’s teams access files, Egnyte keeps everything synchronized for easy collaboration. They spend less time keeping baseline services functioning at enterprise levels and more time working on the next strategic initiative that can move their college forward. Reed A. Sheard, Ed.D, vice president for College Advancement and chief information officer of Westmont College, used Box prior to Egnyte and had such a rocky experience with Box’s service that he decided to make the switch over to Egnyte. “Our experience with Egnyte has been rock solid. It works, it’s fast and it extended the value of cloud services at our college.”Educational institutions know all about needing the right tools to keep their students learning with a competitive edge. These schools – and Egnyte’s other 30,000 customers – recognize that our enterprise-grade solution is an essential tool in their educator “toolbox” for success. Learn more about Egnyte, and read other Egnyte case studies.