At the International Society for Technology in Education 2015 Conference and Expo (ISTE 2015), Dell announced the new Dell Teaching and Learning Academy for educators. Dell also announced the availability of its catalog of virtual professional learning courses, which cover topics such as basic introduction to Windows or Chrome operating systems, next-generation assessments, game-based learning as well as personalized and blended curriculum development.

Through a hybrid offering of onsite and virtual facilitator-led sessions, Dell’s Teaching and Learning Academy will deliver professional learning certifications for educators. Experienced Dell consultants will work with educators to integrate best practices in the application of technology to support their instruction, curriculum and assessment. The Professional Learning certification for educators will be device and platform agnostic, meaning districts do not need to be current Dell customers or have Dell technology to benefit.

Interested educators may join Dell for a series of collaborative conversations on technology in the classroom at ISTE 2015 in the Dell Learning and Innovation Lounge.

The New Caney Independent School District in Texas has chosen the Dell Chromebook 11 to help its 11,000 students from third through twelfth grades develop digital skills. The District underwent an extensive evaluation process, engaging a group of students in providing feedback on multiple Chromebook models and instituting their own testing by dropping devices to assess their sturdiness.

“For us, battery life was key because with a classroom full of devices, students and teachers shouldn’t worry about power outlets or disrupting class to charge a device,” said Dustin Hardin, Technology Director for New Caney ISD. “The Dell Chromebook 11 has no problem lasting through an entire school day and its Intel ‘Haswell’ processor gives it a performance boost that is noticeably better than other models.”

Pflugerville Independent School District in Pflugerville, Texas has adopted new Dell computing solutions. The school district deployed the Dell Precision M4700 mobile workstation, Latitude 3330, Latitude E6430, OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One, and OptiPlex 7010 computers throughout its school system expanding upon its long-term partnership with Dell. Pflugerville ISD selected Dell technology because it helped to meet the goals of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curriculum guided by Project Lead the Way.

Pflugerville ISD consists of 30 campuses: 19 elementary, 6 middle schools, 3 high schools and 2 alternative schools each with their own computing needs. Dell’s range of end-point devices was able to meet the different requirements to support digital learning across the school district, including the goals set forth by the district’s STEM initiative. In its high schools, Pflugerville ISD students gain engineering and design skills through the use of CAD software on the Dell Precision workstation, which offers the performance needed to complete sophisticated designs, 3-D modeling and other graphics-intensive assignments. The mobile design is lightweight enough to move between classrooms, but is compatible with the school’s existing Windows infrastructure.

The Latitude 3330 and E6430 laptops offer a compact, durable design. In its computer labs and classrooms, Pflugerville ISD saves space with the OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One, with a multi-touch screen.

To get the new computers up and running quickly and efficiently, Dell assisted Pflugerville ISD with the imaging, asset tagging, installation and BIOS configuration of the devices. Dell also removed Pflugerville ISD’s legacy systems and ensured of proper disposal.

Dell today announced the Dell Chromebook 11, an affordable and portable Chromebook designed to facilitate integration of technology in the classroom.

The Dell Chromebook 11 features a web-based console that enables centralized configuration and tracking. The management console allows IT administrators and teachers to push or remove applications and enforce safe browsing practices across all Chromebooks in a school’s network. Automated updates and “defense in depth” security features like sandboxing, verified boot, data encryption and easy recovery block or avoid malware, viruses and data loss.

The Dell Chromebook 11 features 4th Generation Intel® Celeron ® 2955U processor, 11.6-inch screen, up to 10-hours of battery life and 16GB embedded Solid State Drive to facilitate a boot-time of under 8.4 seconds. The Dell Chromebook 11 will be available in two models, one which includes 4GB[iv] of internal DDR3 RAM, and the other which includes 2GBiv of RAM.

Availability
The Dell Chromebook 11 4GBiv configuration will be available January 2014. The Dell Chromebook 11 2GB iv configuration will be available during the first quarter of 2014. The Dell Chromebook 11 is expected to sell below $300 and will be available on www.dell.com in the United States and UK.

More than 12 districts in the past two months chose Dell solutions and services for their schools. Dell also announced today a five-step process to help schools create a pathway to personalize learning. The personalized learning framework is built on input from students, teachers and administrators around the world and findings from Dell’s Innovation in Education Think Tanks.

“Personalized learning is more than a buzzword and it’s certainly more than providing students increased access to computers or implementing one-to-one computer programs,” said Jon Phillips, worldwide education director, Dell. “In a personalized approach, students invest in how they learn and how they show their learning through an on-going process of inquiry. Teachers have ready access to an array of personalization tools to meet student needs. And technology combines access to digital content for blended or collaborative learning with access to real-time data that helps teachers intercede when a student is struggling and helps students explore potential areas of interest more deeply.”

Five Steps to Personalize Learning

Dell’s suggested five-step process to personalize learning includes:

1) establishing a vision for learning;

2) determining the right IT infrastructure;

3) preparing for a transition to student-centered learning;

4) ensuring access to technology at home and school; and

5) reinforcing professional learning.

In the past two months, these schools and several others have chosen Dell to help meet their district initiatives and address students’ learning needs:

Cabarrus County Schools in North Carolina

“Dell’s Latitude 3330 helps our students become ready for the challenges they will face in college and career and encourages them to pursue learning outside of the walls of a classroom,” says Katherine Propst, Cabarrus County Schools. “We have been successful with implementing Windows devices due to their advantages in manageability and affordability. The Latitude 3330 delivers the high performance and reliability our schools expect with a Windows PC and is sleek and lightweight for students to use throughout the day.”

Christian Brothers High School in Tennessee

“We are very pleased with the products and services provided by Dell and we look forward to partnering with them as we continue to make the shift to an all-digital curriculum,” said Chris Fay, Principal of Christian Brothers High School. “Also, we will look to them as we phase in our comprehensive STEM curriculum. Our goal is to make science, technology, engineering, and math courses more accessible and approachable for our students. Our relationship with Dell is an integral part of our plan for a top-notch STEM experience.”

Clear Creek Independent School District in Texas
“The first building block to personalized learning is access to technology and the Internet,” said Kevin Schwartz, Chief Technology Officer, Clear Creek Independent School District. “You can get access with most any tablet, but to fully deliver personalized learning requires a device that works seamlessly with all systems. The Dell Latitude 10 provides all of those features at a price that allows us to extend the initiative to more students.”

Duncanville Independent School District in Texas
“The Dell Latitude 10 essentials configuration is a win-win solution for our district,” said Dr. Larry McHaney, Deputy Superintendent for Learning Services at Duncanville ISD. “Most important, Dell’s tablet helps our students and teachers get way beyond the printed pages of a textbook to meaningfully engage in learning while also providing an efficient solution for our technology division.”

Fargo Public Schools in North Dakota
“We want our students to learn the needed skills to be successful in the 21st century and we believe they must have the right devices at the ready that will help them not only consume information but also produce new projects and content,” said Bill Westrick, IT Director, Fargo Public Schools. “We chose Dell Windows 8 devices because teachers can integrate them into their existing curriculum; students can now produce information as easily as they can consume it and the Dell Latitude 10 tablets are easy for us to manage within our existing IT infrastructure.”

Riverhead Central School District in New York
“If a teacher requests a specific piece of software for a class, such as Adobe Acrobat, we simply reconfigure the machine pool for that lab and deliver that software directly from the Dell Virtual Desktop Infrastructure,” said Robert Hines, Technology Coordinator at Riverhead Central School District. “This is a huge improvement compared with sending all the students to a different lab where the software is physically installed on machines, which is what we did before.”

San Antonio Independent School District in Texas
“The Dell Latitude 10 tablets give our students a device for self-directed learning and literacy that enables them to go beyond the text and pursue their own interests and intellectual curiosities,” said Marcos Zorola, Chief Information Officer, San Antonio Independent School District. “Dell’s solution is the best for our school district’s libraries because they not only deliver a great user experience, but the tablets are compatible with the library infrastructure simplifying their deployment and management.”

Somers Central School District in New York
“With the Dell Latitude 10, students can be consumers and producers of content and prepare for success in a demanding high tech world. For example, for our students' social action video project, students can not only write a script, but they design the storyboard, shoot the video, and edit it all in the same place,” said Chris White, Director of IT for Somers Central School District. “Dell with Windows 8 also plays a critical in empowering students. In our personalized learning environment, students are able to instantly make their learning visible. As a result, teachers can gauge in real-time whether their students are understanding concepts and individualize their teaching techniques within a single 40 minute class.”

Spartanburg School District 3 in South Carolina
“Ultimately, it’s all about the learning experience,” said Eric Levitt, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, Spartanburg School District 3. “Dell Windows 8 devices deliver our teachers and students an intuitive device for self-directed learning that delivers a personalized approach to education.”

Spring Branch Independent School District in Texas
“Over time our students and teachers struggled to leverage current education software and apps on their netbooks because the netbooks were intended for lighter workloads,” said Wes Hargrove, Director of Technology at Spring Branch Independent School District. “Dell addressed the need of increased use by providing a reliable, cost-effective data center solution that makes all the great online learning and education applications easier to access and use well. Our district now has the building blocks in place to continue to leverage technology in our schools’ curriculum for years to come.”

Troup County School System in Georgia

“Windows PCs have always been the most affordable, manageable and productive tools for our students to use,” said Josh Moneypenny, Technology Director of Troup County School System. “Dell’s combination of high-performance computers at an affordable price helps us provide more of our students and teachers the tools they need to make teaching and learning more interactive and engaging.”

Westwood Independent School District in Texas
“We were seeking solutions that would bring technology into the classroom, sparking students’ desire to learn, and also expanding our district’s educational opportunities beyond the classroom,” explains Dr. Clint McLain, Assistant Superintendent and High School Principal, Westwood Independent School District. “Additionally, Dell’s tablets provided the best way to address our online student assessment needs here in the State of Texas. These devices are innovative and will be enjoyable for our students to use.”

Dell KACE today announced the Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School (MICDS) is using Dell KACE solutions to enhance their technology infrastructures and streamline systems management tasks.

Managing today’s influx of data and devices presents unique challenges for IT managers in schools and universities. Pressure to boost efficiency without sacrificing educational quality and securely managing large numbers of end points and multiple operating systems such as Mac OS X and Windows, often in disparate environments like computer labs and campus branches, brings even more complexity.

The Dell KACE K Series is equipped to maintain core IT tasks such as increasing data center security, enabling greater campus connectivity for effective collaboration, helping to save energy through power management applications, all while helping reduce costs.

The IT team at MICDS lacked a systems management solution to efficiently reimage and service the growing number of student-assigned devices. To ensure technology remained a core delivery component of the institution’s curriculum, the Dell KACE Appliances annually reimage hundreds of laptops, and streamline its service desk, asset inventory and other systems management tasks. In less than four months the school experienced a nearly 700 percent ROI, reduced time spent on imaging from months to weeks, and reduced service desk calls by up to 56 percent.

“With Dell KACE we’ve experienced benefits that have been critical to the evolution of our approach to managing our systems. Today we have the flexibility to efficiently reimage our machines, insight into our asset inventory and can innovate on our service desk,” said Ron Falkoff, system analyst, for MICDS. “Now our day-to-day issues are just that, allowing us to focus on more long-term strategic IT projects.”

Schools and universities are turning to Dell’s Education Data Management (EDM) solution, a decision support system, to help personalize student learning, increase retention and graduation rates while improving planning, management and reporting. The solution integrates student performance and operational data with predictive analytics to help educators monitor student progress and intervene when needed to improve success. It tracks each student’s data between schools and over multiple years to help parents and educators monitor student progress and respond to developmental needs or hone in on specific interests and aptitudes.

Dell’s robust data management solutions are delivering results today in school districts, universities, community colleges and technical schools:

• Denton Independent School District, Dell and its partner, Education Data Collaborative, are implementing a real-time data warehouse to aggregate all student performance data together from multiple disparate systems. Teachers and administrators can use it to improve instruction in the classroom targeted for each individual student leading to early warning and intervention opportunities designed to help students. “We have realigned our benchmark assessments, and our teachers and principals are seeing what real-time data can do to prepare our students,” says Jamie Wilson, Superintendent, Denton Independent School District.
• In the El Paso region the Education Data Collaborative partnered with Dell to demonstrate that through preventive intervention, a potential savings of several million dollars could be gained from the efficiencies of implementing education data management in the 15 El Paso region middle schools. The project leveraged predictive analytics with performance data to reveal college and career readiness as early as the fifth grade, based on El Paso Community College metrics.
• Laramie County School District #1 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, is using data to track student progress and allocate resources to enhance the learning process. The district used Dell EDM to integrate multiple databases and run analytics for streamlined information access. “We leveraged the foundation Dell provided us to build an interactive school support model that is being used to improve student and school performance,” says Gordon Knopp, Chief Information Officer, Laramie County School District #1.
• One school district has also used technology to identify specific student performance weaknesses, addressing issues six times faster than before. The result: high school graduation rates are now 100 percent (up from 82). A striking 16 percent more graduates attend college, and the district’s performance ratings have improved dramatically.

Dell’s Education Data Management solution centers on providing a complete environment and platform with student, teacher and administrator dashboard functionality for real-time, actionable data and the use of predictive analytics. The solution enables the use of key data to inform and provide insight into trends creating a comprehensive decision support system. It includes all of the technology and services necessary for success, from storage that simplifies data management across the district to the online portals, platforms and change management, professional development and data coaching that helps educators and administrators make the most of the data to improve student outcomes. The solution also supports district-wide operational planning and performance for human resources, finance and facilities. It includes master data management, data governance, data warehousing and/or in-memory computing, education intelligence tools and an online portal specifically created for students, teachers, administrators and parents.

Also, today Microsoft recognizes Dell as Global Education Partner of the Year for the company’s dedication to education and commitment to building solutions that serve the education community. Dell was recognized among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of nearly 3,000 entrants worldwide.

Dell’s Education Data Management (EDM) solution integrates student performance and operational data with predictive analytics to help educators monitor student progress and intervene when needed. It tracks each student’s data between schools and over multiple years to help parents and educators monitor student progress and respond to developmental needs or hone in on specific interests and aptitudes.

Dell’s Education Data Management solution centers on providing a complete environment and platform with student, teacher and administrator dashboard functionality for real-time, actionable data and the use of predictive analytics. The solution enables the use of key data to inform and provide insight into trends creating a comprehensive decision support system. It includes all of the technology and services necessary for success, from storage that simplifies data management across the district to the online portals, platforms and change management, professional development and data coaching that helps educators and administrators make the most of the data to improve student outcomes. The solution also supports district-wide operational planning and performance for human resources, finance and facilities. It includes master data management, data governance, data warehousing and/or in-memory computing, education intelligence tools and an online portal specifically created for students, teachers, administrators and parents.

Also, today Microsoft recognizes Dell as Global Education Partner of the Year for the company’s dedication to education and commitment to building solutions that serve the education community.

Dell launched today a new Dell Wyse solution and special offer to provide more students with secure access to digital learning resources.

Dell is providing U.S. schools that are implementing any-device, anywhere computing an easy-to-deploy and manage desktop virtualization solution featuring a Dell Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DVS) Simplified Appliance, powered by a Dell PowerEdge 12th generation server and Citrix VDI-in-a-Box Software with a Dell Wyse T10 thin client for $500* per seat. This special offer is valid through Aug. 31.

The solution gives students anywhere in the school access to data and applications using a Dell Wyse thin client and from home using their personal devices. For school districts interested in supporting students using their own devices at school, the solution provides increased security while giving IT administrators and teachers more control over the school’s involvement in how students use their devices. IT departments can focus on enabling teachers and students to take advantage of blended learning approaches, not on managing devices. And with Dell Wyse systems’ zero touch management features, these low-power and low-touch end points eliminate hours of traditional basic support.

To help schools further simplify device management and expand student access to technology, Dell also today launched the new Dell Wyse E00 zero client—a zero-touch, budget-friendly, energy-efficient device that builds on the success of Dell Wyse E01 and Dell Wyse E02 zero clients. Enabling shared computing access for up to 15 students per server** using Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 software, the E00 can consume substantially less power than a conventional PC helping school districts make the most of their technology budgets. The Dell Wyse E00 addresses the need for affordable, secure technology that is easy to set up and run, while delivering a great desktop experience for students.

In addition to thin clients, Dell provides a full range of client systems to meet the diverse needs of school districts, from the Dell Latitude ST Tablet specifically designed for use in education and healthcare, to the company’s award-winning XPS 13 Ultrabook.

Dell has agreed to acquire Kace, a systems management appliance company with solutions tailored to the requirements of education, government, healthcare and businesses.

Kace, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., provides comprehensive solutions through the KBOX systems-management and deployment appliances which carry a range of capabilities.

For more information visit www.dell.com