As digital tools and data become more important, schools need to consider the benefits of digital transformation.

In the world of business, digital transformation has been a huge topic for quite a few years now. Comparatively, this is less the case in the educational sector – but schools are a business just like any other, so it is important that they consider it as an important step forward. We reached out to a managed IT services company that has worked with schools in the past, called TechQuarters. They described some of the key reasons why schools should be taking steps towards digital transformation in 2023.

What is Digital Transformation?

Many people get confused about what digital transformation really means. It is essentially the process of businesses re-building their business model from the ground up so that it more readily encompasses modern technologies, and enables them to take advantage of digital channels. For schools, digital transformation is primarily about being able to offer modern learning pathways that can be more closely tailored to the needs of learners.

Six Reasons Why Schools Should Digitally Transform

1. Better Collaboration

First and foremost, digital transformation is known to enhance collaboration in organisations. For schools, this is particularly important, because staff need to be able to collaborate efficiently and productively. Digital transformation facilitates better collaboration through solutions like unified communications and cloud storage. TechQuarters, who have provided small business IT support London based schools and educational institutes have used for years, confirmed that these types of modernized business solutions can have a huge impact on schools.

2. Opportunities for Automation

Building on the topic of how digital transformation can help schools operate more efficiently, digital transformation can open schools up to time-saving solutions like automation. Anyone that works in a school will be able to confirm that there are countless repetitive tasks that – while being very crucial to the proper running of the organisation – are not necessary the most productive use of staff time. The solution is to automate these types of tasks, thus freeing up staff time – this is something that can be very easy for a digitally transformed school.

3. Better Accessibility

Schools should be available to everyone, no matter what they accessibility requirements are. This is one thing that the COVID-19 highlighted – that distanced learning may actually be more accessible than traditional on-premises learning. Having provided IT support for Schools for many years now, TechQuarters was able to confirm that digital transformation enables schools to provide more accessible pathways to learning – because solutions like virtual classrooms and asynchronous learning are easier to support as an organisation that is digitally-native.

4. Better Educational Resources

Building on the previous point, it is also possible for schools to provide and maintain better educational resources as a digitally transformed organisation. For example, a common practice that is apart of digital transformation is the digitization of data – for a school, this could mean transitioning from physical textbooks to digital versions, which of course are not susceptible to physical damage, and are easier to update and deploy. Digital transformation may also enable more diverse educational resources – for example, schools could start producing additional materials (such as their own textbooks, or even tutorial videos), to distribute to learners.

5. Custom Learning

In other businesses, digital transformation allows organisations to access higher quality data, which can give them insights that drive more accurate decision making. This is true with schools as well, but going further, schools can use this same principle of utilizing data to enable custom learning pathways and opportunities for their learners. As everyone learns in a different way, being able to offer custom materials or resources for learners can have a lot of benefits.