Covid-19 has definitely created a range of new challenges for the education sector. However, these challenges have spurred schools and universities to adapt and evolve.
“In Malaysia, the ministry of
education had actually deployed Google
Classrooms for education institutes and
they were encouraging the teachers to
use the platform for a couple of years,”
explains Jane Abdullah, territory
manager for South East Asia with
Blonde Robot.
“With Covid-19 and the limitations
imposed on the education sector, we see
teachers having to learn how to use the
platform in greater numbers. The
pandemic has been an accelerant for
teachers to upskill themselves and to
use the tools at their disposal.”
Providing the necessary tools and
technology to students and teachers
is just one challenge caused by the
disruption. The education sector is
also battling the problems of operating
online platforms for regular classes,
guaranteeing the security of content while
formulating a coherent strategy to safely
reopen premises when the time is right.
Like it’s parent company Midwich
APAC, value-add distributor Blonde
Robot has a range of solutions that can be
deployed in collaboration with its channel
partners to help education institutes.
According to Dan Fletcher, general
manager, Blonde Robot, security is the
first area that should be addressed.
“With the right products, security
issues can be nipped in the bud,”
comments Fletcher.
“We have products that are SRT
compliant, which is full end-to-end
encryption. Zoom is arguably now the most
popular web conferencing platform but
there are other alternatives available and
one solution our client base works with is
from BirdDog. Perhaps the most important
benefit of the BirdDog cloud-based solution
– particularly for a school or university
where the privacy and protection of young,
more vulnerable individuals is concerned –
is that the stream is one way and security is
achieved by distributing NDI content to
anywhere in the world using SRT 256 bit
encryption. The conferencing experience
simply uses BirdDog hardware (such as a
converter box) and their software with one
of their PTZ cameras and basically
broadcasts an SRT stream that can be
viewed on the web via any device, be it a
laptop, an iPad or a mobile phone with
access to the stream via a pin number.”
With many countries around the world
moving toward reopening, students will
be returning to campuses but social
distancing and other precautionary
measures must be in place. Classrooms
will have to function differently. Technology
will need to deliver scalability and flexibility
to help schools and universities cope with
the changes. Once again, Blonde Robot
has a range of solutions to help.
“NDI is a video-over-IP standard
now widely adopted because it has low
overheads,” explains Fletcher. “The entire
stream can fit inside a 1Gb network. If you
have an existing building and you are
looking at uncompressed video, you will
need a 10Gb connection to make that
work which means that you might have
to start running new cables and upgrade
your network infrastructure. NDI on
the other hand is built to leverage your
existing network without the need to
invest in a significant amount of hardware
or control. You can just plug a device in,
power it and it shows up as a source or a
destination because it is self-discovering.
In an education environment where we
have say 30% occupancy, you could plug
in a BirdDog PTZ camera which is fully
NDI capable and have it available as a
source and you could put a decoder
behind a TV in the cafeteria to be able
to use that space for teaching as well.
And of course, the content can be made
available as a Web RTC stream for
someone who is at a remote location.”
“We’ve dealt with the fact that these
are trying times,” Fletcher concludes.
“There is going to be a compromised
level of learning for our children and
we are facing these challenges on the
backfoot but moving forward we are all
going to have to do better. Government
departments and education institutes
need to look into putting together
plans to combat these situations and
technology will play a vital role in these
plans."