Healthcare may be the first industry that springs to mind for many people when thinking about sectors that have had to suddenly, dramatically adjust due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But ask parents around the world, and they’ll likely say “education.” The traditional classroom was turned on its head in a matter of weeks, and some of those changes will be here to stay.

Back in February there were no capabilities at scale for kids to attend classes from home. Fast forward a few weeks and millions of kids were attending classes and completing assignments remotely.

As has happened in many other industries, apps are also getting their chance to disrupt the education paradigm. Application portals like j2launch and others are delivering an array of learning and quiz apps. Established apps like Kahoot! have been retooled for an educational setting. As a natural evolution of this phenomenon, gamification is being much more widely used to engage kids in learning.

The results of all these efforts have been mixed, but the progress has been remarkable given the nature of education as an industry. It’s easy to imagine the highlights from school board meeting transcripts had this wave of change occurred any other time.

From a cybersecurity perspective, perhaps the greatest risk for digital education comes from the wide variation across districts in terms of resources. For some, laptops, apps and other technologies were already part of curricula. But in many areas, those assets are harder to come by, let alone IT departments and cybersecurity staff.

Read the full article published August 5, 2020 here: https://www.securityweek.com/educations-digital-future-and-end-snow-days by SecurityWeek.