Changing students’ lives one network at a time

When Joseph Robinson was last hands-on in the classroom, people had just gotten past “You’ve got mail.” Even at that early stage of Internet adoption, he saw the power of technology to transform students’ lives. Yet many schools didn’t have a way to deliver this technology reliably or at scale.

Today, as a Spectrum Enterprise account executive focused on education, Robinson is working to change that by providing the scalable, reliable networks required to create digital learning experiences for all students.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Joseph about his work.

How did you first get involved in education?

While I was in the U.S. Air Force, I had the opportunity to work part-time in a children’s hospital. I eventually became a board-certified behavior analyst, working with kids who came from abusive homes and had various developmental disabilities. From 2001 to 2006, I worked for Brevard County Schools in Florida helping administrators ensure the success of both teachers and their students with special needs. I saw first-hand how technology could make a powerful impact and foster achievement for these students through individualized instruction, lesson plans and behavior plans.

You worked for Brevard County nearly 15 years ago, when technology was at a very different stage of development. How have things changed?

Students who were struggling or who had special needs worked with adaptive learning software on computers at the back of the classroom. With these technological advancements they could progress through the material at their own pace. But it was rare to find classrooms where each child had his or her own device for learning throughout the school day. School networks just weren’t capable of supporting large-scale use of data, video and other multimedia content.

Today, it’s a much different story. With access to shared documents in the cloud, students can collaborate with each other much more effectively and construct new knowledge together. Digital content is making learning more interactive; if students are having trouble with a concept, they can watch an online video over and over again until they understand. Digital curriculum allows students to work fluidly from anywhere, and it creates a more customized learning experience in which all students can learn at their own pace.

What’s your role in helping schools achieve their goals today?

Technology is only amazing when it works. The content has to get to the school and make its way through a secure network that isn’t congested or compromised in order to reach a student’s device. If anything goes wrong along the way, it’s a bad day for those students and the teacher.

This is where Spectrum Enterprise comes in. We work with school systems to design and construct scalable high-performance fiber networks with built-in redundancy. We’ve helped schools go completely digital with their curriculums. Over the years we’ve supported multiple K-12 school systems throughout the U.S. including one in Florida that wanted to put a device in every student’s hand. We were able to provide a network with the bandwidth, speed and security required to make it happen.

To learn more about how the Spectrum Enterprise team is helping K-12 school systems transform learning with technology, read our e-book.