There are many costs associated with Information and Communication Technologies [ICT] to schools who are always spending heavily on ICT so as to be able to come up to the requirements of children who are using those systems for academic purposes.
It has been witnessed that there are quite high costs associated with ICT and therefore there have been suggestions from some quarters about how schooling institutions can help save costs on technology.
Open Source
Using open source operating systems is a great way to save costs because they are all for free and do not require any volume licensing as do conventional operating systems such as Windows. If a school were to use Windows OS over all the computers that run over its premises, it would have to pay a heavy amount of money to Microsoft to purchase the license for the volume edition of Windows that can be run over multiple computers.
In addition to that, the license would also have to be renewed on a yearly basis.
Compare this situation with using a Linux based system, say, Ubuntu, to replace the Windows OS that is used in schools so as to cut costs, which is all for free, every year of the calendar!
There is no doubt that the amount of cost savings would be phenomenal and the school would be able to benefit immensely from the expensive licensing for Windows.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is another area where costs can be saved when documents are saved online in remote locations using cloud computing apps such as Dropbox or SkyDrive so that there are hardly any expenses that are needed for storage of data for purposes of the school.
The amount and hence the cost of storage of data would come down to a minimal, and that would surely be a level of cost that any school can bear with ease.
So, cloud computing is another very intelligent way to save costs related to technology and redirect the budget elsewhere for a higher return on investment relatively.
Consortia
In the same manner, cost savings can be made by making good use of consortiums that can ultimately be of high benefit for the schools.
Making good use of consortium for the purposes of a school using technology as a tool, means that academic sources are pooled together in an online environment such as a Virtual Learning Environment [VLE], which can be remotely accessed by any user using the World Wide Web so that research papers, books, journals et cetera, are all available online in one singular space.
This collection of online libraries or VLE which are used by different schools and universities is what can help any school save additional costs, such as in terms of costs for printing academic material because it can be accessed whenever required using the internet.
Then, these are three ways in which academic institutions can save up on their costs and make things better for themselves by employing these budget-saving strategies to help them manage the same level of academic tasks in a much smaller budget relatively.
Therefore, this advice can be of great benefit to schools and they would make a wise decision by pondering over these suggestions and then acting upon them to help them save thousands of dollars annually that would otherwise have to be spent on information and communications technology needlessly when the feat can be accomplished in less effort, time and amount comparatively.
(*) Katherine Switzer is a writer at iPhone spy apps. She loves to cover latest trending topics in education and technology. You may follow her on Twitter @kathrineswitzer
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