The Education Appliance eA500/eA1000

The Education Appliance is an industry leading platform that supports the ICT infrastructure for Schools 2.0 – the next generation of schools. The eA1000 supports up to 1000 students.

The three key functions supported by the Education Appliance are:

1. Learning
2. Networking
3. Administration

Learning

Learning and collaborative learning are provided by the Education Appliance using blogs, wikis, and other such shared applications. Content created as a result of such collaboration can be stored on the Education Appliance as well.

Learning or Course Management System (LMS)

A virtual learning environment to create online learning sites as well as tracking schedules, timetables, class information etc.

 

Learning Activity Management System (LAMS)

Designed for managing and delivering online collaborative learning activities. Provides with a highly intuitive visual authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities, including a range of individual tasks, small group work and whole class activities based on both content and collaboration.

 

Class/School Conferencing System (SCS)

Allows delivering synchronized live presentations, whiteboards and web pages and share their voice and video on a local network or between remote locations (e.g. over the Internet).

 

Print Server

Available with USB attached printers; allows all students to share common printers.

 

Shared Storage

Personal and shared folders (documents) are available for students and teachers, with appropriate security and space assignment.

 

Networking

The Education Appliance supports comprehensive voice, data and video communications between a student and teacher, and amongst the students, both locally and remotely.

Connectivity

Wireless connectivity between the Education Appliance and the student laptops using either the built-in access point or an external access point.

 

Internet Access and Proxy Services

Access to Internet (or remote network) including proxy set up.

 

Unified Communications

Support voice telephony (IP PBX), email, video, instant messaging, websites and blogs.

 

Routing

IP Routing between the Education Appliance and external networks (Internet) can be set up on the platform.

 

Quality of Service

Quality of service (QoS) can be established using the platform along with other functions such as web caching and significantly improve end user experience (due to speeding up access to remote content).

 

Administration

The Education Appliance provides a host of administrative functions through a simple, easy to use interface. All administration regarding communication and collaboration capabilities – such as usage, permissions, security etc can be supported. In addition, administration enables storing student information system.

Client PC Management

The ability to configure, view, update and delete OS image, user data, network profiles on client PC (student laptops) from a server management console.

 

Authentication

Authentication system for students, teachers and ‘guest’ users.

 

Security

Full security and firewall between the class infrastructure and the outside (between classes; or from the Internet/remote infrastructure).

 

System Backup

Automatic and/or manual system back up is available.

 

Asset Management System (AMS)

Gathering all system information (versions; releases; configurations) of the client laptops.

 

Student Information System (SIS)

Allows student specific information including demographic, class scheduling, performance transcripts, attendance and more.

 

Unified GUI Management

A simple easy-to-use interface to manage all service and functions remotely. GUI is available in English, German, Portuguese; Additional languages including Spanish, Italian and others will be made available shortly.

 

Full reporting system

Internet access, storage, printer and other shared resource usage can be monitored.

 

Benefits of using the Education Appliance

1. Significantly simplifies the school ICT infrastructure

The Education Appliance eA500/eA1000 often works in conjunction with the Education Appliance eA60/eA100 and student laptops (or similar devices). By deferring some of the functionality – especially those that makes sense on the School-wide basis (such as administering school wide policies etc) to the eA500/eA1000, the eA60/eA100 and the student devices can be relegated to focusing on delivering a local 1:1 learning experience.

2. Broadest feature set

There is no comparable product to the Education Appliance, and the breadth of functionality that it makes available is simply not available on a single platform.

3. Scalability and flexibility

The Education Appliance can scale from a very few (less than 10) to up to 1000 students – which can support most School configurations. This is done without any changes to the platform and by simply (and remotely) adding the user/student licenses.

The Education Appliance can also be customized to support individual requirements. There is no requirement to use all the functionality on the platform (i.e. functionality can be selectively used), and further more, third party applications can be integrated on the platform as well.

4. Proven

The Education Appliance has been deployed quite extensively; in fact, it was recently deployed in one of the largest school modernization programs in the world. The platform has also won several industry awards recognizing its market leadership.