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Ignite Your Future by Opting for Hybrid and Blended Courses
Education Technology Insights | Monday, November 28, 2022
1. The education sector is changing and evolving at a tremendous pace, moving away from traditional classrooms and toward virtual learning spaces. As the program director for cloud computing at Wake Technical Community College, what are some of the latest technology adoption trends you are witnessing in the education domain?
Virtual courses are very much in demand but the moving away from the traditional classroom will level out and I do not see this format going away. The reason for this is that there are students that do not do well in a virtual environment but excel when they are in the classroom and have that type of instructor interaction. This was very apparent when the COVID pandemic hit and we went 100% online for over a year.
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Nonetheless, I do think that the need for the 100% seated course will be reduced. Opting more for hybrid and blended courses that combine seated instruction time and online content has been a good move to meet student needs. By providing multiple modalities of instruction requires combining educational technologies for collaboration, content delivery, assignment collection, and grading.
2. In a world where cloud computing has become one of the supporting pillars of digital technology, how do you utilize cloud at your organization to enhance the learning outcomes for students?
We want to expose students to multiple cloud technologies. There are cloud-based service providers that provide instructional content through the cloud. There are programs that want to get students certified with a major cloud vendor. This has a benefit of providing a good foundation in the cloud, knowing how a specific cloud service works, and hopefully gives the student the ability to be adaptive to other cloud service providers.
Our program at Wake Tech in Cloud Infrastructure is designed to take a different approach where we develop technical skills to setup and support cloud environments as well as knowledge of the cloud so that students can be adaptive and support hybrid and multi-cloud environments. To do this, we expose students to multiple cloud platforms throughout the degree program in the courses they take and opportunities external to the program to obtain certifications. This allows students to see how the cloud is applied directly when they are learning the Linux and Windows operating systems, how virtualization is applied, cloud storage concepts, and networking to support cloud architectures.
To further support our cloud learning objectives we have labs that allow students to directly apply their skills. This includes a Student Data Center that we use as a cloud source to deploy some instructional content as well as having hands on ability to work with hyperconverged hardware.
3. What are some of the initiatives or programs you have spearheaded during your term as the program director for cloud computing at Wake Technical Community College, and how have these programs made a difference?
When I started as the Program Director for Cloud Computing there was not a cloud program. The program in place was a Storage & Virtualization degree program. The program provided a good foundation for the Cloud Infrastructure degree program where I was able to work with industry and faculty to devise the Cloud Infrastructure program. This program update increased student technical and soft skills while reducing the credits needed to graduate in the program. We reduced the credits to graduate from a 72 credit hour Windows based program to 65 credit hours that greatly enhanced Linux skills, added Python programming, and more cloud content.
In addition to technical skills our general education electives were changed to develop soft skills so that students can better navigate working in a business environment. These included courses in communication, critical thinking, and changing up our Systems and Design course where a student works through a case study and the SDLC throughout the course, interacting with a virtual corporate manager where they need to develop project deliverables. When the Cloud Infrastructure program was launched our industry partners were very clear after we launched the program in stating that the skills that students learn in the program was what they needed.
We are still assessing outcomes but we received some great feedback from an organization that hired one of our students as an intern to work on their cloud migrations effort. They reported that the student was very valuable to the effort especially with the application of the application and understanding of virtualization they brought to the migration effort.
b5yOther key efforts to develop the program was to create and make operational our Student Data Center for instructional purposes as well as to provide hardware that is part of the cloud fabric that students can work with in our more advanced courses. Currently we are able to make these program changes with grant support from a National Science Foundation ATE Grant. This grant also provides more internships for our students and externships for faculty.
4. What is your role in implementing efficient cloud computing strategies in the education sector to benefit both the students as well as the teachers?
It is important to work with industry, faculty, and students in my role. Here at Wake Tech, one of our campuses is in the Research Triangle Park where there are multiple large tech companies and their involvement helps make our cloud direction very clear. It also gives us the ability to reach out to businesses of all sizes to be able to provide skilled graduates to support and sustain their cloud initiatives. We want to be sure faculty have time to be involved in back to industry efforts and this not only improves our courses but helps us to be able to meet industry needs.
5. As an ending note, what is your advice for other senior leaders and CXOs working in the education sector?
Senior leaders need to understand the cloud so they can position their programs to develop the right skills for their students. Obtaining cloud skills goes beyond just having student become certified with a service provider such as AWS, Google, Azure, and others. Rather, programs need to be able to help businesses in all industries that are adopting cloud technology with cloud migration strategies, cloud sustainability, DevOps, cloud security, etc., that encompassmultiple cloud vendors and on prem cloud services. I have been able to expand on this in the education sector not just through Wake Tech but also being able to address these topics with some depth in my master class lectures in Cloud Computing through CalTech’s Center for Technology and Management Education (CTME).
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Continuity of learning has emerged as one of the most pressing considerations. Students rarely experience learning in a single fixed environment anymore. Absences due to travel, illness, extracurricular commitments have made it necessary for coursework to follow the student rather than remain bound to the classroom. Platforms that function reliably across mobile devices help maintain participation during these interruptions. Mobile accessibility also enables schools to extend instruction beyond the classroom while preserving engagement with ongoing coursework. Systems that allow students to resume assignments exactly where they paused help maintain academic rhythm and reduce the friction that often causes learning gaps in fragmented digital environments.
Institutional transparency represents another major priority for education leaders evaluating learning platforms. School communities increasingly expect clearer insight into academic progress and day-to-day learning activity. Administrators require consolidated information about student performance across classes while parents want timely insight into how their children are progressing. Platforms that provide accessible grade visibility, communication pathways between teachers and families and centralized student information help strengthen accountability across the educational ecosystem. Clear visibility into academic performance allows schools to demonstrate learning outcomes to families while giving administrators the information needed to guide institutional decisions.
Practical classroom usability remains equally important. Teachers operate within intense time constraints, which makes workflow efficiency a defining feature of a viable learning platform. Systems that streamline grading, assignment tracking and feedback reduce administrative burden and allow educators to focus more attention on instruction itself. Learning environments that permit teachers to add reinforcement materials or supplementary guidance without disrupting class time can support deeper student understanding while maintaining classroom flow. When students can complete assignments through familiar personal devices outside school hours, the platform becomes integrated into the rhythm of instruction rather than acting as a parallel administrative tool.
Data visibility also influences how schools refine teaching strategies. Administrators and curriculum leaders increasingly rely on performance patterns within digital platforms to understand where students struggle. Performance insights allow educators to identify learning gaps, adjust materials and introduce targeted practice. Observing where students encounter difficulty in specific topics allows institutions to respond quickly with additional exercises or instructional adjustments, strengthening comprehension before knowledge gaps widen.
Floresh exemplifies how these capabilities can converge within a unified online learning environment. The platform delivers a mobile-first digital learning experience that allows students to continue coursework wherever they are, supporting continuity when students are away from the classroom. It simplifies grading and progress tracking for teachers while providing administrators with centralized access to student information. Floresh also creates separate data environments for each institution, reinforcing trust and data integrity across school systems. Parent visibility into live academic progress encourages family participation in the learning process. Schools using the platform have also applied its analytics to identify vocabulary comprehension gaps and introduce targeted practice exercises, improving student outcomes through data-guided teaching adjustments. ...Read more
Financial clarity between institutions and students has become a defining factor in enrollment stability and student persistence. Tuition pricing continues to rise while funding structures grow more complex, leaving many students uncertain about what they owe and how they will manage it. Institutional leaders responsible for payment infrastructure are no longer evaluating vendors solely on transaction accuracy. They are examining how payment systems influence affordability perception, administrative coordination and long-term retention.
A modern higher education payment platform must address three interconnected realities. It must present a clear affordability pathway to students who often struggle to interpret their financial obligations. It must unify fragmented campus systems that historically evolved in silos. It must also evolve alongside changing consumer technology expectations without introducing risk or instability into institutional environments.
Student confusion remains a significant enrollment barrier. Many learners encounter a bill before they fully understand grants, scholarships, installment options or alternative funding sources. When payment systems merely issue statements and collect funds, institutions lose an opportunity to guide decision-making. Payment technology should instead organize federal aid, recurring payment options, scholarship credits and personal contributions into a coherent financial picture. Institutions that enable students to visualize manageable paths to payment strengthen the likelihood that those students will enroll and persist.
Campus environments often compound the problem through decentralization. In institutions where departments have historically acquired independent tools, multiple payment workflows may exist simultaneously. Such fragmentation creates inconsistent experiences for students and increases reconciliation burdens for finance and IT teams. Enterprise-level harmonization, grounded in strong integration with core enterprise resource planning systems, is essential. Platforms must reliably connect to systems of record such as PeopleSoft, Banner or Workday to prevent data fractures and ensure consistency across enrollment management, student services and finance operations.
Technology adoption in higher education frequently lags broader consumer markets. Students arrive on campus accustomed to intuitive digital environments shaped by global technology leaders. When institutional systems feel outdated or overly complex, confidence erodes. Payment providers that incorporate behavioral science principles into design can guide students toward constructive financial choices without overwhelming them. Subtle design elements that encourage installment enrollment or clarify due dates can materially improve outcomes while preserving user autonomy.
Innovation should not be framed as a tradeoff against security or reliability. Modern architectures, cloud-based infrastructure and thoughtful implementation planning can enhance predictability rather than compromise it. Institutions with limited internal resources require partners that minimize deployment disruption while aligning implementation with measurable institutional objectives.
Campus Commerce positions itself within this framework by extending beyond transaction processing into structured financial guidance. It consolidates payment plans, one-time payments and diverse funding sources into a unified student-facing experience. Integration with major enterprise systems enables standardized workflows across campus units, reducing fragmentation and manual intervention. Its design philosophy incorporates behavioral economics to influence constructive payment behavior while maintaining clarity. Over 25 years of partnership experience informs its transition from paper-based environments to digital, mobile-first and emerging AI-enabled applications. Institutions pursuing modernization while protecting student trust will find Campus Commerce aligned with that mandate. ...Read more
School systems today operate under pressure from multiple directions: academic accountability, student safety expectations, staffing volatility and widening social needs among families. Executives evaluating school management services must look beyond baseline compliance and test performance. The central question is whether a management partner can align educational delivery, family stability and institutional discipline into a coherent structure that produces sustained growth.
Student achievement does not exist in isolation. Enrollment stability, attendance consistency and academic progress depend heavily on the conditions surrounding a child. A management organization must demonstrate that it understands this relationship and can translate that understanding into structured programs. That includes measurable academic oversight, disciplined governance and visible investment in student welfare. It also requires the capacity to grow enrollment responsibly while maintaining performance standards.
Security and infrastructure oversight have become defining features of competent school administration. A management provider should be able to demonstrate active monitoring systems, transportation visibility and centralized coordination rather than reactive policy statements. Continuous supervision of facilities and buses, supported by a command structure that monitors activity throughout the school day, signals seriousness about student protection. Safety must be treated as a daily management function rather than a contingency plan.
Academic delivery requires more than curriculum adoption. Leadership must be segmented into clearly defined executive roles that oversee compliance, early childhood development, finance, human resources and training. When department heads are accountable for specific domains, schools avoid fragmentation and preserve instructional consistency. Professional development must be systematic, not episodic; ensuring that teachers, paraprofessionals and support staff remain prepared and aligned with institutional expectations.
Technology integration is no longer optional. One-to-one device access, structured data systems that track individual student progress and curriculum-linked digital programs reflect a forward orientation. Educational leaders must evaluate whether technology investments are tied directly to measurable academic development rather than novelty. Programs such as structured eSports initiatives that embed curriculum components illustrate how engagement strategies can be integrated into formal learning pathways rather than operating as extracurricular distractions.
Community integration also differentiates capable school management firms from administrative contractors. When a management organization recognizes that family economic stress undermines student performance, it may extend services beyond classroom walls. Access to on-site health resources, structured support for food insecurity and employment pathways for parents demonstrate a broader educational philosophy grounded in removing barriers to learning. These programs should be organized within formal business units so they remain sustainable rather than charitable add-ons.
Evidence of turnaround capability remains a decisive factor. A credible management partner should be able to demonstrate enrollment recovery, charter renewal success and measurable growth after assuming responsibility for struggling schools. Rapid enrollment expansion following takeover, stabilization of governance structures and long-term charter contracts signal disciplined execution rather than short-term optics.
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The educational field undergoes continuous development because organizations try to find better methods for delivering learning to large groups while preserving educational standards and consistent delivery and accountability monitoring. Educational institutions show interest in AI tutoring systems, which serve as organized educational tools that use adaptive technology together with their teaching methods.
The platforms operate as business tools that help educational institutions develop their learning processes and assessment systems, and their strategic educational planning. The use of AI tutoring systems by professional training institutions, educational organizations and corporate training departments serves as a strategic method for achieving educational results that support their organizational operations.
AI tutoring systems enhance educational delivery by continuously monitoring students' learning habits and academic performance. They leverage assessment results, user interactions, and engagement data to adapt learning materials and instructional content in real time, allowing organizations to meet diverse learning needs without expanding teaching staff or infrastructure.
These platforms create standardized content frameworks that ensure equal learning opportunities across different times and locations. By establishing standardized learning paths, AI tutoring systems guide students through their educational journeys and stabilize learning processes, ultimately improving organizations' ability to forecast student performance and achieve better outcomes.
Personalization Functions as a Business Performance Enhancer
AI tutoring platforms provide their most significant business advantage through their ability to create personalized learning experiences. Students can focus on their essential learning needs through adaptive learning paths, which prevent them from repeating unnecessary material. This improves business outcomes through increased completion rates and higher customer satisfaction, and better alignment between education and desired results. The organization needs these results because they directly affect performance indicators, which include certification success, skill acquisition and workforce readiness.
Operational operations benefit from personalization because it establishes predictable patterns. The combination of standardized instructional design together with adaptive logic decreases the need for people to handle teaching tasks. Trainers and educators should spend their time mentoring students and evaluating their progress, and improving their learning materials. The operational model reduces delivery expenses while improving resource efficiency and maintaining delivery quality standards. Organizations gain advantages through the scalable method, which combines educational effectiveness with their financial requirements and their long-term planning needs.
The process of personalization creates crucial information about how students behave as learners. Performance data from students displays patterns that help educators decide on pacing and assessment creation, and curriculum design. The organization uses these insights to create new offerings that will help students. The learning portfolios of the organization become more adaptable to student requirements while they continue to meet the organization's strategic objectives.
Data Governance and Platform Integration Requirements
AI tutoring platforms achieve their success through the implementation of proper data governance procedures. Policies must establish clear rules for accessing, using and storing learner data. Governance frameworks create reliable environments that enable stakeholders to trust that algorithm-based recommendations will maintain their transparency and understandable nature. The system provides clarity, which allows users to handle automated instructional systems for learning activities across different learning spaces.
Organizations must establish connections to all their existing systems. AI tutoring platforms achieve their maximum educational value when they operate together with learning management systems, assessment systems and administrative systems. The integrated systems enable the creation of consolidated reports that provide a shared overview of student progress together with operational metrics. The organization benefits from interoperability because it allows for better educational decision-making through data sharing between business units while reducing redundant activities and avoiding data storage.
The organization achieves better scalability through successful system integration. The integrated system enables organizations to grow their programs and increase their student enrollment numbers without causing permanent operational interruptions. The system allows organizations to expand their operations while maintaining organizational control, which becomes critical for organizations that work across multiple regions and learning segments.
Commercial Strategy and Long-Term Value Creation
AI tutoring platforms determine how educational institutions distribute their educational services and how they charge for those services. The organization establishes flexible business models that use three payment methods: subscriptions, usage-based charging, and charging based on predefined outcome results. The system enables organizations to provide educational services through customized solutions that fulfill the needs of educational institutions, businesses and individual students. The education market needs educational providers to demonstrate that their students achieve better learning results because this creates their unique value proposition, which sets them apart from other educational providers.
The creation of value for customers over extended time periods requires organizations to implement their business strategies in a controlled manner. Organizations that view AI tutoring as an essential business capability will achieve persistent advantages through their strategic operational work. The organization requires investment in teacher development and process alignment, and ongoing operational enhancements.
Learning platforms will evolve into essential components that drive learning ecosystems forward by delivering standardized educational results and enhancing organizational visibility. AI-powered tutoring platforms create a balance between maintaining instructional standards and enabling organizations to operate efficiently, which establishes their value as long-lasting educational resources for learning enterprises throughout the world. ...Read more
