Last week when I was on vacation in Istanbul, it happened to be the first week of the month-long 8^thAnnual Istanbul Tulip Festival. As we were walking around the rainbow colored flower beds, I couldn't help but notice the hordes of field-tripping school children around us, skipping along with stuffed animal backpacks in tow, smartphones in their hands.

With children growing up with devices as an integral part of their lives (Piper Jaffrey just came out with a study that says nearly half of American teenagers own an iPhone!), there's no denying the potential of technology and education. If there's one thing we learned from our Virtual EduForum event, it's that schools are trying to embrace devices and keep up with technologies to harness that potential and stay ahead of the curve.

But deploying a wi-fi network at a school isn't as simple as 1-2-3. IT visibility into the network can be especially challenging for K-12 educational environments. Some applications can disrupt mission critical applications, like mandated online testing, or negatively impact a student's learning experience. It's important to understand what applications are running in the network in order to selectively prioritize, deny, or manage the ones that use up more bandwidth. Although Access Control Lists (ACLs) and Quality of Service (QoS) can prioritize traffic, application visibility provides greater detail and control.

That's why we're continuing our K-12 Webinar Series to show you how Cisco and Meraki can help make your lives a little easier by enabling you to take control of your network with the highest visibility and performance possible.

Join us for a live workshop April 23rd and learn about the ins and outs of application visibility. Presenters include Tony De La Rosa, Marketing Programs Manager from the Cisco Wireless Networking Group, and Pablo Estrada, Solution Architect, from Meraki. We will cover:

• The comprehensive application visibility and control solution from Cisco that is embedded in the wireless and wired network, including the Meraki portfolio
• A real world demonstration to show how you can obtain greater control of what applications to allow, deny, or limit
• Application troubleshooting scenarios and techniques to quickly regain control and maintain network performance predictability

Whether you are an IT manager or an administrator, this webinar will provide you with valuable information to help you take control of your network. Cisco, with the addition of Meraki, provides a superior networking portfolio for K-12 environments. It can resolve these issues and help you achieve your educational mission.

Cisco experts will be available for live Q&A, so bring your questions.

Register now on our webinar community page. Just use the dropdown to select the webinar you want to watch (this one is called "Take Control of Your Network").

Did you miss the first webinar in the series "Tablets in K-12 Education?" Don't worry-it's available on demand. You can find it in the drop down menu on our webinar community page.