Providing every student with reliable and consistent access to digital learning tools is no longer a luxury for school districts—it’s the cost of a 21st-century education. While it can significantly enhance learning, the widespread adoption of 1:1 student-to-device programs places a heavy burden on district resources for device upkeep, security, and software updates.

Schools are now tasked not only with ensuring each student has access to a device, but are also navigating a new set of challenges with developing systems to manage repairs, replacements, and secure internet access for thousands of iPads, Chromebooks, and other technology devices.

By implementing efficient management practices, districts can help maximize the effectiveness of their investment in technology and maintain a seamless learning experience.

Here are four strategies to help K-12 districts navigate the surge in 1:1 devices and other technology.

1. Life Support

Schools have long helped students understand how to respect and protect districts’ investment in resources to extend their lifespan. While we’ve come a long way from using brown paper grocery bags as book covers, students still play a key role in taking care of their school-issued supplies.

Investing in protective materials, such as sturdy cases, screen protectors, and keyboard covers, is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways schools can extend the life of their digital devices. These relatively inexpensive solutions act as a first line of defense against common accidents, such as drops, spills, and overstuffed backpacks, that can quickly turn a functional device into an unusable one. By equipping devices with protective gear, schools can avoid frequent replacements and repair costs while ensuring that devices remain in good working condition throughout the school year and beyond.

Another way schools can foster a culture of responsibility and device care is by launching an engaging educational campaign that encourages students to properly maintain their digital tools. Elements could include informational sessions, posters, and ongoing reminders about best practices for handling devices like keeping screens clean, avoiding drops, and managing battery health. Involving students in the campaign, perhaps by creating videos or designing materials, can make the message even more impactful, reinforcing the idea that everyone plays a part in maintaining a sustainable tech environment.

2. Techxperts

Engaging a student-led tech team (“techxperts," if you will) can be a smart, cost-effective way for schools to manage technical support while empowering learners with real-world skills. By forming a team of tech-savvy students to assist with device repairs, software troubleshooting, and basic maintenance, schools can reduce the workload on their professional IT staff and foster a sense of responsibility and accomplishment in students.

In order to be successful, it’s critical to have a structured program that’s folded into the curriculum or incorporated into your school’s career and technical education (CTE) program. Offering a technical certification from Cisco or partnering with local community colleges for dual credit are also great incentives for students to participate.

Knowledge and skill levels will vary, so begin with a screening test to check aptitude, as some students may be a better fit to manage the logistics of ticketing and project tracking than working on repairs and software updates.

With clear guidance, training sessions, and mentorship from IT staff, student tech teams are a mutually beneficial way to help address everyday issues and help ensure a smoother, more sustainable tech environment for the entire school community.

3. Tech Teamwork

Appointing a dedicated committee to manage digital devices in schools is crucial to ensuring that these valuable tools are used effectively, maintained properly, and available to all students.

A committee composed of key stakeholders such as teachers, librarians, IT staff, administrators, parents, school board members, and student representatives, can provide diverse perspectives. The committee can create comprehensive plans to handle device management, understand needs at a classroom level, establish guidelines for responsible use, and organize regularly scheduled maintenance checks and software upgrades.

By meeting quarterly, this group can help schools stay ahead of evolving technology needs, secure funding for future purchases, and establish best practices for integrating devices into the curriculum. By appointing a dedicated committee, schools not only protect their investment but also create a collaborative environment that prioritizes effective, sustainable digital learning.

4. Invest in Asset Management Software 

Asset management software can provide real-time location tracking, status, and detailed device inventories, doing the heavy lifting and ensuring the entire team knows what resources are in each building. This software can also help districts reduce surplus and accurately forecast future purchasing needs, as well as stay on top of maintenance, flagging devices for repairs before they become unusable. It can also make the most of limited budgets by tracking device depreciation, warranties, and licensing information.

Asset management systems can also play an important role in tracking software usage across a school district, monitoring how often specific programs and applications are accessed. It gives administrators a clear picture of what software is being underused or heavily relied upon, enabling them to make data-driven decisions about future technology needs.

In embracing a 1:1 digital device program, schools have a unique opportunity to prepare students for a digitally-driven world. However, simply providing devices is not enough; successful implementation requires ongoing planning and support. When managed wisely, 1:1 devices can provide students with a personalized and enriched learning experience, empowering them to develop critical skills, bridge learning gaps, and engage more deeply with their education, setting them up for success in a connected world.

• Phil Hintz is the Chief Technology Officer for the Niles Township School District in Chicago, IL.
• Carl Hooker is an educator, speaker, consultant, author, entrepreneur, and podcast host.
• Shad McGaha is the Chief Technology Officer for Belton ISD in Belton, TX.
• Eva Mendoza is the Chief Information Technology Officer for San Antonio ISD.

The best mobile device management tools, or MDM solutions, can help an education institution better keep track of, and control tablets, laptops, smartphones and desktops. The right MDM can help IT admins stay in firm control.

The key here is that a great mobile device management solution will make the work of the IT team far more efficient, ultimately saving time. But on top of that, it will allow for greater control over the mobile devices to ensure all are always working at their best.

The right tool can allow an IT administrator the power to locate, lock, and even wipe devices all remotely from a central location. But, of course, it can do a whole lot more too.

So which is the best mobile device management tool for your school or college? Read on to find out everything you need to know.

• The Best K-12 Learning Management Systems
• Student Information Systems
• One-to-One Computing and Classroom Management

1. Filewave Endpoint Management Suite: Best Overall MDM

Founded in 1992, FileWave provides its Endpoint Management Suite to education, enterprise, and government institutions to assist IT teams throughout the entire lifecycle process of inventorying, imaging, deployment, management, and maintenance. 

FileWave’s Endpoint Management Suite is an all-in-one, highly scalable MDM solution that solves the many challenges of managing a diverse and growing population of users, devices, and content. It does this by ensuring organizations have a comprehensive solution that supports both client (desktop) and mobile devices across Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.

This all-inclusive, multi-platform unified endpoint management solution offers many unique and powerful features that streamline the entire IT lifecycle process (inventory, image, deploy, manage and maintain) within a single console. 

Key features:

- Complete multi-platform support (macOS, iOS, Windows & Android).

- Multi-platform imaging (direct, network, and layered models).

- Patented fileset deployment (deploy anything, anytime, at any level).

- Patented booster technology (highly scalable infrastructure that significantly reduces network traffic).

- True self-healing technology (auto-repair broken installations).

- Device discovery, tracking and security; inventory, license and content management.

- End-user self-service kiosk (user specific, on-demand content, and updates).

- Robust patch management (OS and 3rd party updates).

2. Jamf Pro: Best MDM for Apple

Since 2002, Jamf has been helping more than 4,000 school IT teams, instructional technologists, administrators, and teachers manage Macs and iPads in the classroom to ensure their Apple programs are a success. With Jamf Pro, users can automate Mac and iPad deployment and simplify ongoing management.

Jamf Pro offers ongoing device management that evolves with the changing needs and expectations of the classroom. 

Key features: 

- Support for Apple’s Device Enrollment Programs to automatically enroll and configure new devices.

- Integration with Apple School Manager and zero-day support for all new Apple releases.

- Definition of settings using configuration profiles, policies, and custom scripts.

- Management of Apple’s built-in security tools: passcodes, security policies, software restrictions, and Lost Mode.

- Access to Jamf Nation, the Apple IT community of 100,000-plus members.

3. Lightspeed Mobile Manager: Best MDM for Schools

Lightspeed Mobile Manager is a unique MDM solution made just for schools. It saves time and money with multi-OS support, intuitive IUs, integration with Apple and Windows programs, and a school-based hierarchy and policy inheritance.

Mobile Manager is designed with a hierarchy to match a district and inheritance to make policies easy to set across levels. It’s multi-OS, and it has classroom controls for teachers. 

Key features:

- Ability to control all of your devices remotely with the click of a button.

- Integrate your SIS to automatically create users and groups.

- Manage all of your solutions from a centralized dashboard interface; and more.

4. Securly MDM for Schools: Best MDM for Teachers

Securly puts both IT administrators and teachers in control of classroom devices by providing school-specific mobile device management plus classroom management tools. Securly supports iOS, Android, and macOS. Apple VPP and DEP are supported at both district level and school level. 

Teachers can freeze student screens, lock to a specific app or website, and more. Securly is highly scalable, from a single school with just a few carts of devices to large districts with many school locations and thousands of devices in a 1:1 program.

Securly is designed exclusively for schools, so everything from the intuitive interface to the classroom feature set is designed to meet schools needs, rather than corporate enterprise needs, which can be quite different for mobile device management. 

For example, schools often have to refresh an entire fleet of devices between school years, so functions for mass-reset help the IT department accomplish this. Schools also have the unique need of sharing administration responsibilities with teachers, who need to make changes at the classroom level. Securly empowers them to accomplish this.

5. Impero Education Pro: Best MDM for Safety

Schools use Impero Education Pro for a wide array of administrative IT tasks such as controlling passwords, managing printers, or setting computers to power on or off at certain times. This saves time for IT departments because they can schedule school-wide installs, patches, and updates from one screen instead of having to physically go to each device.

Impero Education Pro also provides mobile device monitoring tools to help teachers take full control of their classrooms while allowing students to benefit from the use of technology. Teachers can share their screens, send or share files with students, take over or lock students’ computers, create exams, assign tasks, send direct messages to students, or monitor thumbnails of students’ activity in real time to ensure they are on task.

The software also monitors students’ online activity on a school’s network and alerts educators if students use keywords that could indicate cyberbullying, sexting, radicalization, self-harm, or a range of other issues.

Impero Education Pro is unique in that it provides seamless integration across multiple platforms. It consolidates a range of powerful classroom, network, and device management features enabling schools and colleges to reduce costs and improve both staff and student productivity. 

Its online safety functionality uses keyword detection technology to help schools safeguard students online, and provides deeper monitoring than many other types of monitoring software. 

Impero Software also partners with nonprofit and specialist organizations including Hey Ugly, ikeepsafe, Anad, and the Institute of Digital Citizenship in order to develop its keyword libraries and to connect schools with appropriate resources.

Also Consider: Black Box Wallmount Charging Locker

Whether you’re a teacher, IT tech, or administrator, Black Box Wallmount Charging Lockers are engineered to save your floor space and your budget. Ideal for smaller classrooms that are short on space, the lockers hold 9 or 12 iPad tablets or 15-inch Chromebook laptops. 

These tools also give you the versatility to mount multiple lockers together for more storage options. Adjustable rackmount rails enable you to mount other IT equipment too. Plus, the 100% steel lockers hold up to 150 pounds and are guaranteed for life.

Wallmount Charging Lockers are unique because devices and power bricks are accessible from the front, which allows the lockers to be stacked on all sides to form device charging walls. Other lockers need to have access to the front and the back or top, not allowing them to form locker walls. Also, the Wallmount Charging Locker has optional GDS Wireless Charging technology to eliminate device power cords for most tablets used in the classroom.

• The Best K-12 Learning Management Systems
• Student Information Systems
• One-to-One Computing and Classroom Management

From our friends at techradar:
5G is the fifth generation of mobile internet connectivity, and is just beginning to roll out around the world. It promises speeds up to 20 times faster than 4G connections, more bandwidth and more stable connections. 

This has tremendous potential to transform the way we communicate, with live high-definition video streaming and much faster download speeds, but it also has uses far beyond what we currently do with our phones and tablets – including reaching into the classroom.

Why this matters:  
Classroom technologies such as virtual/augmented reality and remote education are opening up new avenues to learning and engagement for K12 students. These technologies demand transmission of large amounts of data—which 5G can provide. To explore the benefits of 5G mobile internet connectivity in the classroom, visit techradar.com

Jamf today announced new features for Jamf School aimed at helping teachers to utilize their Apple technology to its fullest potential. Jamf School is a purpose-built mobile device management (MDM) solution for education. Its web-based interface aims to make deploying, managing and securing Apple technology simple and accessible. The Jamf School management system also pairs with three apps, Jamf Teacher, Jamf Parent and Jamf Student – with a goal of creating the optimal digital learning experience within the classroom and at home. 

This summer, Jamf School will provide the following features:

• Creating ad-hoc classrooms within Jamf Teacher for flexible teaching allows teachers to initiate and create a classroom and immediately. Usually classrooms are defined in the management system by IT, but sometimes an educator needs to create an instant classroom themselves. Now, when a teacher creates an ad-hoc classroom, the students in close proximity to the teacher will get a notification inviting them to join. 
• Filtering content for maximum focus now allows an admin to manage the iOS built-in web content filter and offers a more user-friendly way of filtering apps. Educators and parents can now use the Jamf Teacher and Jamf Parent apps to block categories of apps, such as “games” or “social media”, helping students stay focused during the school day and when doing schoolwork at home. 

In addition to Jamf School, Jamf Parent, an app that allows parents to guide their children’s use of apps and features on school-issued devices, will soon be available for Jamf Pro customers. 

Securly  today announced the acquisition of TechPilot Labs, provider of K-12 education technology. TechPilot Labs, a private company based near Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in 2012 by Jarrett Volzer and serves hundreds of school districts spread across four continents with mobile device management and classroom technology management products. 

With the addition of new solutions from TechPilot Labs, Securly’s comprehensive digital student experience suite now provides these key capabilities:

• Mobile device management for all Apple devices, allowing for deployment, inventory, management, app distribution, OS updating and more across hundreds or thousands of devices whether at school or off campus
• Classroom management for Chromebooks and Apple devices that allows teachers to control what’s on each device, keep students focused and on-task, monitor student activity, open websites, restrict web access, and more
• Network management using the cloud-based filtering solution, providing control, visibility, and flexibility for CIPA compliance
• Online safety management through AI-powered search, social media, and email monitoring, anonymous tip line services and 24x7 monitoring by a staff of trained student safety experts
• Parent engagement through the combination of parent portals that provide visibility and control over the use of both school-provided and personal devices

Those interested in learning more about the acquisition and the combined power of these solutions can attend a live informational webinar on March 14th at 10 am PT/1 pm ET. To learn more about each company’s solutions, please visit securly.com and techpilotlabs.com.

To ban or not to ban, that is the question. Phones in school continue to be a hot potato topic. They cause distraction! They are a valuable learning instrument! School districts in Wisconsin continue to ban cell phones after school staff say students are more engaged. The entire country of France is now under a law that prohibits mobiles. But I think the experts in this USA Today column get it right: “How many people go to work each day and turn their phone in...getting ready for career and college is learning how to avoid the distraction of your phone.” —Kevin Hogan, Managing Director of Content

[8 Tips for Teachers Using Google Cardboard in School]

Kevin Hogan stopped by the Netsupport booth at ISTE 2018 to discuss their school-wide IT management system. Managing director Marcus Kingsley highlighted the system’s ability to manage a wide-array of ed-tech but emphasized a focus on digital citizenship and a changing narrative in online student safety.

Bretford is introducing additions and upgrades to its family of mobile device charging products at ISTE 2018.

First unveiled at ISTE 2017, Bretford’s latest iteration of its TechGuard Connect® charging lockers offers expanded features including an integrated 5” touchscreen, with an easy-to-use interface, and RFID-powered check-in/check-out functionality. Check-In/Check-Out mode turns TechGuard Connect into a self-service kiosk, allowing users to check out available devices on a loaner-basis with existing RFID cards, use the mobile device for a set period of time, then check it back in.

[What’s New: New Tools for Schools]

Other new Bretford products on display at ISTE include:

• Juice® Mobile Power – This mobile power system, with proprietary FLI Charge technology, turns a single outlet into a power source for the entire classroom or office.
• CUBE Toploader and CUBE Toploader Mini – The CUBE family, Bretford’s line-up of budget-friendly charging stations, carts and trays, now features an expanded toploading option.

To see the line of Bretford products in action, visit the Bretford Booth #1703 on the ISTE show floor or visit www.bretford.com for a virtual demo.

Choosing the mobile device management (MDM) software that best meets the needs of a school or district can pay big dividends, because the right system can help make mobile learning initiatives more successful while easing the burden on IT departments. This white paper covers eight critical factors to consider. Click here to download.

Where are all your devices, what’s on them, how are they performing, and who’s using them to do what? As mobile devices in schools continue to proliferate, districts need to be able to answer these questions, control access, manage updates, and more. Multiple Device Management, or MDM, saves teacher and tech staff time, helps to facilitate learning, and is also a matter of fiduciary responsibility. Whether it’s thousands of Chromebooks or iPads or even textbooks hiding and breeding in closets, thoughtful and context-sensitive management systems are crucial. As MDM solutions continue to mature, districts here in the U.S. and in Canada share their successes and challenges—as well as some first impressions of Apple’s new iOS 9.3.

MAKING WAVES

Scott Smith, chief technology officer at Mooresville (NC) Graded School District (MGSD), describes his district of 6,200 students as “average.” But what sets them apart is that they’re eight years into a “digital conversion,” a curricular and instructional initiative that’s changing how teachers teach and students learn—that and the fact that, while eight years ago MGSD consistently ranked in the upper sixties among the 115 public school districts in the state, for the past five years they’ve been among the top four or five. At the moment they’re tied for third in North Carolina for academic achievement. Their drop-out rate is down, and their graduation rate, attendance, and test scores are all up. Smith is quick to point out that it’s not about the devices, but from an instructional standpoint it’s clear that the technology is supporting student learning in new and exciting ways.

Left: MGSD students learning with their Apple devices. Right: MGSD students collaborate using their Apple devices. When the district went 1:1 with iPads and MacBook Airs, in 2008, the term “MDM” didn’t exist, but Smith quickly realized he needed a technological solution to manage between 6,500 and 7,000 devices. “I needed the ability to reach out and touch every device in our district and push a change through with the click of a button,” Smith says. FileWave gave him the power to do just that. Smith was, and is, impressed that FileWave is a cross-platform solution that’s scalable, affordable, and easy to use.

YOUR DEVICE YOUR WAY

Another key FileWave feature that enables MGSD students and teachers to get the most from their devices is a self-serve portal called Kiosk. Smith likens it to the drink and condiments station at a fast-food restaurant, where customers choose what they want. Approved software and apps are put into Kiosk, and students download what they need to their devices. So much manageability also helps with licensing, Smith says. He can make a software program available to an individual user who needs it or push it through to their device—and he can equally see and remove illegal copies.

START SLOW TO GO FAST

Smith encourages districts looking at device management to “start slow to go fast”—to do their homework, learn from the successes and mistakes of others, carefully plan what they want to do and why, and start with some pilot projects. “There are so many different aspects—technology, but also PD, infrastructure, school culture, management, community outreach and messaging—they’re all important,” he says.

The district has partnered with FileWave for seven years now. “They’re truly in vested in what we do and in our kids,” Smith says. “If we have a technical issue, they get it, and what it means in our environment, and they listen to our suggestions and incorporate changes.” The digital conversion at MGSD might have started slow, but they’re going fast now.

TOOLS THEY USE
MGSD

► FileWave
► iPads
► MacBook Airs

EMPOWERING AND EFFICIENT
JUST CHOOSE ONE

Teachers in the Public Schools of Northborough Southborough benefit from Lightspeed’s multi-platform control for one-stop management. Having handled thousands of different devices—from Apple laptops to Androids—with four different MDM tools, and having suffered the headaches caused by lack of live updating and by having to double back down various paths to track missing devices, Leo Brehm, newly appointed Director of Technology and Digital Learning at the Public Schools of Northborough Southborough (MA), speaks from experience when he urges districts to find a single MDM tool that can manage all of their devices.

Clearly, ease of updates and inventory management and control are key advantages to using one MDM solution. In addition to improved efficiency and communication, Brehm says, it’s part of a district’s fiduciary responsibility to track and maintain what represents, for many districts, millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. The one tool that enables Brehm and his team to do all this and more is Lightspeed.

EMPOWERING TEACHERS

One of the strengths of Lightspeed, Brehm says, is its intuitive, user-friendly interface. And one of the advantages of the thought that Lightspeed has put into its design is that teachers can be easily trained to manage their own classroom devices and distribute apps to students. While this is helpful for tech staff, even more importantly, Brehm says, it’s empowering for teachers and respects their time and expertise. “There’s lots to be said for a distributed management model,” Brehm says. “Teachers can evaluate content for their students and make those decisions, often just-in-time decisions, rather than filling out a ticket and waiting for support staff to load the program.”

GOING FORWARD WITH THE SPEED OF LIGHT

Brehm urges districts to examine management tools based on the features that are important on a daily basis (as opposed to those that might be used periodically or not at all) in their context. The fact that Lightspeed is 100% cloud-based is an advantage, Brehm says, and particularly when 1:1 devices are going home. Cost-effectiveness was another factor in the decision to partner with Lightspeed. Brehm is confident that “Lightspeed is a product that will take us into the future as the focus moves more and more from hardware to user experience.”

TOOLS THEY USE
PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NORTHBOROUGH SOUTHBOROUGH

► Apple laptops and desktops
► Chromebooks
► iPads
► Lightspeed
► Windows desktops

HAS ANYONE SEEN MY TEXTBOOK?
A DISASTER

Community Unit School District 300 uses Follett’s textbook inventory to track resources. Imagine thousands of textbooks, rows and rows of them, piled on the floor, stacked in cabinets, classrooms, storage rooms—an inventory for a district of 21,000 students in 27 different schools stretching across 118 square miles. Imagine purchasing hundreds of new textbooks and later discovering hundreds of copies of the same textbook, brand new, in another classroom. Imagine waking up in a cold sweat only to realize that it’s real. This was the situation in which Community (IL) Unit School District 300 (D300) found itself in 2013 when Susan Harkin, district CFO, sent a courageous SOS to Follett’s Managed Services.

Even though the district had previously purchased and implemented Follett’s Destiny Resource Manager, a lack of consistent practice and policies meant the product was not as effective as it could have been. So the overwhelming task ahead involved not only finding the books, but also putting systems in place to ensure they wound up in the right hands at the right time. Harkin’s chief concern was that the textbook chaos would infringe on critical educational time for students. “At the heart of all this was that our students weren’t starting the school year with the proper materials,” she says.

A JUST-IN-TIME SOLUTION

“We sat down with Follett, explained our situation, and asked them to help us out,” Harkin says. After meeting with stakeholders and fully assessing the situation, the Follett team recommended a single solution that combined the benefits of their Destiny Resource Manager with their new “Managed Services.”

This solution involved working with the district to create new policies and procedures and to develop and support a revolutionized management process—managed from a central office. And it required a huge investment of many hours to barcode and scan each individual textbook into the system. Follett also took over warehousing and distribution of the books, delivering them on-demand as needed.

The solution improved district-wide efficiency and saved many thousands of dollars. Most important of all, however, is the fact that this mammoth project was completed over the summer so that, on the first day of school, every student had all the right resources to hit the ground running.

Today, D300’s textbook inventory is accurate and up-to-date and textbooks are easily moved within the district as needed—and the district is looking at duplicating a similar sustainable system to inventory other key assets, such as band and athletic equipment.

MDM ACROSS THE MILES

Doug Klassen, Technology Coach for the Sun West School Division (SWSD) in Saskatchewan, Canada, travels many miles to serve the district’s 5,000 students in this rural area covering many thousands of square miles (180 miles from one side of the district to the other). Many of the district’s 40 schools have a K–12 population of fewer than 200 students.

SWSD students from the Davidson School engaged in the school-wide Up to Code project. While some of these locations are remote, SWSD stays on the cutting edge of edtech. “Our division is really a big supporter of creating new learning environments where the students have more control over the pace, path, and place, allowing greater engagement and greater success rates,” Klassen says.

Throughout these schools, SWSD maintains approximately 500 laptops, 1,000 iPads, and 350 Android tablets. They run Windows on their 2,000 desktops, as well as on the laptops, and they use Microsoft’s SCCM to manage them and help with the deployment of technology. “The teachers and students have access to our application catalog,” Klassen says, “where they can install software themselves, saving the IT department a significant amount of time.”

The district uses the Apple DEP program to set up iPads, combined with AirWatch to keep track of them once they’re deployed. In addition, Klassen and his team set up the Apple Volume Purchase Program at each school so teachers can easily purchase and download apps.

THE BENEFITS OF BETTER CONTROL

“In the Android world,” Klassen says, “we run TabPilot as our MDM. In this environment we are allowed much more control of the actual devices. Teachers can control what the students see on their screens and content can be sent to the devices very quickly and easily.”

This greater level of control, monitoring, and classroom management benefits both teachers and students, Klassen notes. Teachers who want students to go to a specific Web site, for example, place that Web site on the screen as an icon so the students can click and go straight to the site. Another useful feature of TabPilot is that teachers can lock student screens with a message telling them to look up for further instructions.

As the district continues to promote blended and personalized learning, Klassen says, these tech tools help them accomplish their goal of success for all students.

TOOLS THEY USE
SWSD

► AirWatch
► Android tablets
► Blackboard
► iPads
► Moodle
► OneNote
► SCCM
► TabPilot

NO INTERRUPTIONS, PLEASE
A BIG LEAP

A seventh grader at a Pleasant Valley (CA) School District middle school creates a scary story using her iPad and a green screen. When Jay Greenlinger became Director of Instructional Technology at Pleasant Valley (CA) School District (PVSD) three years ago, the district had no mobile devices. “We were primed to take a big leap,” he says, “and we did.” The district of 6,600 students has deployed 4,400 Chromebooks, 1,300 iPads, and 1,000 Windows devices. The goal for managing these, Greenlinger says, is to “balance management that doesn’t interrupt teaching and learning.” And the district finds it easiest to accomplish this with Chromebooks because of the superior visibility and control that GoGuardian affords teachers and administrators.

This visibility has alleviated a lot of concerns for experienced teachers who have changed the way they teach with the new devices. They have a live view of every student’s Chromebook screen and can close and open tabs, interact with messaging if a student needs to be redirected, and show a student’s screen to the entire class with a single click.

Greenlinger also notes a key shift from beginning with device control to starting with teaching and learning and adjusting management around what’s happening in the classroom. “We’ve become less restrictive and more permissive,” he says, which also benefits students as they’re guided in learning how to make good decisions.

SUPERVISION ON THE PLAYGROUND AND ONLINE

Students at this same Monte Vista Middle School collaborate using Chromebooks. Greenlinger emphasizes that digital citizenship is simply one aspect of “good old-fashioned school citizenship.” Students know that an attentive playground supervisor will intervene when they break the rules on the tetherball court, and students at PVSD know that doing an inappropriate search or trying to access blocked content will result in a visit from the principal, who will have received a notification about the activity.

Greenlinger speaks from experience when he urges districts to have a solution and processes in place before deploying devices. When the district gave in to the temptation to deploy their iPads too quickly, they had to recall and set them all up again. Greenlinger says they brought their questions about MDM to GoGuardian and the company answered them all. Now PVSD teachers can focus on instruction instead of management—without interruptions.

TOOLS THEY USE
PVSD

► Chromebooks
► GoGuardian
► iPads
► Lightspeed (to manage iPads)

TECHNOLOGY RICH

TUSD students experience virtual reality on their iPads. Tustin (CA) Unified School District (TUSD) is about to enter year four of its 1:1 program. Most schools in the district are 2:1 or 1:1 with iPads up to fourth grade, while fifth through eighth graders have iPads, and high-school students receive Toshiba Portege Z30 laptops. Students learn using these devices in classrooms equipped with projectors, interactive boards, voice amplification, document cameras, Apple TV, and more. In addition, Haiku LMS, GAFE, Microsoft 365, Aeries, and numerous online texts and resources support the curriculum as students and teachers explore learning in all areas—from STEM and robotics to storytelling through film.

With 24,000 students and more than 28,000 devices, Robert Craven, Senior Director of Information Technology, says that device management is very different than it was a few years ago. His department manages laptops and desktops through SSCM and the 1:1 iPads through AirWatch. Craven also notes that their use of iboss filtering to aid in device management and filtering is “a key component to any large technology deployment.”

NEW DEVELOPMENTS SAVE TIME

TUSD students experience virtual reality on their iPads. Below: TUSD students engage in a Socratic seminar. “MDM solutions,” Craven says, “are exceptional at enabling teachers and the technology staff to save enormous amounts of time.” Both a Windows 10 upgrade, which TUSD will begin this summer, as well as the new Apple iOS 9.3, promise greater instructional capability and time savings. With Microsoft, apps will be available to students and teachers on a self-service model. And with iPads, “the ability to push apps to students without requiring an Apple ID now is huge; that feature alone is going to make an enormous difference in saving the technology department and entire district time,” Craven says. He also emphasizes the benefits of Apple Classroom as well as the increased functionality during testing to push the secure browser and determine which devices are properly set for testing.

3 TOP TIPS FOR MDM ADOPTION

“With many MDMs offering similar features due to the integration available from Apple, I think it’s important for districts to look at three key features when determining which MDM to use,” Craven says.

1. Customer service. Which companies are going to be there when a problem arises? And how long does it typically take them to close support tickets?

2. Timeline for supporting new Apple features. How long did it take them to support 9.3 features after their release?

3. Ease of use. How would the solution fit within your existing infrastructure? And how much management can be easily turned over to teachers?

TOOLS THEY USE
TUSD

► Aeries SIS
► AirWatch
► Airwolf 3D printers
► Apple TV
► Document cameras
► Epson projectors
► GAFE
► Haiku LMS
► iboss
► Interactive boards
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► Miracast
► Numerous online resources
► Project Lead The Way
► Toshiba Portege Z30 laptops
► Vex Robotics

MANAGING MORE THAN DEVICES

Schools know management comes in many education flavors. Here’s a snapshot of a few ways schools are using tools to manage other kinds of tech:

The Southern Kern Unified School District in Rosamond (CA) uses Absolute (absolute.com) to prevent the theft of about laptops in circulation at their five schools. The solution accesses near real-time information on the location and status of laptops and provide audit-quality inventory reports on hardware and software.

Tuscarawas Valley Local Schools in Zoarville (OH) wanted to prevent students from being able to go to Web sites that are not a part of student instruction, and also stop them trying to delete the web history. They turned to NetSupport School (www.netsupportsoftware.com) to help. “It is nice to be able to glance to the screen and instantly see everything that is on their screen, “says Heidi Varansky, Assistant Technology Coordinator. “We have also used it to completely block web access when a student isn’t doing what he/she is supposed to be doing.”

Print management is another area where schools can realize thousands in savings. Hutto Independent School District is one example. As the district’s fleet of devices and print capabilities grew, so did its need for greater security, output monitoring and chargebacks. Ricoh, who had been providing multifunctional printer devices to Hutto ISD for eight years, collaborated with the district to add centralized Active Directory-based authentication software to the MFPs, where users can either input their name and password or swipe their ID badge to release documents or scan and email from the device. Ricoh also implemented centralized faxing added new scanning software that allowed users to scan-to-email, scan-to-PC or scan-to-file. “By right-sizing , we saved $72,000 plus in fleet maintenance and leases over the 5-year contract working with Ricoh,” said Travis Brown, Director of Technology at Hutto ISD.

if you don't pay attention, I'll steal this tablet right out of your pocket!

Many critics of contemporary schooling practices have noted that, if a teacher from the 19th century was magically transported into a typical classroom today, she would feel very comfortable with how things look. The room itself would be very familiar.

(Whether that teacher would be comfortable with today's students is another matter entirely, given that they probably look a little different than they did 'back in the day' -- to say nothing of how they might act and some of the opinions they might have!)

Contrast this, such critics note, with the situation of a surgeon from the 19th century teleported into an operating room today -- he would be bewildered, and perhaps disoriented, by all of the technology on display.

Few would deny that, in many fundamental and obvious ways, technology has revolutionalized medicine and healthcare.

Why hasn't it done so (yet) for learning and education?

One way that critics illustrate and reinforce this question is to share pictures of 'typical' operating rooms in the 19th and 21st centuries, alongside pictures of 'typical' classrooms from both centuries. The classrooms in such examples usually do look quite the same, with a teacher standing at the front of the room and neatly lined up rows of students intently (if metaphorically) drinking from the fountain of the teacher's knowledge. The chief noticeable difference (again, apart from the students themselves -- and the teachers as well) is that there are now computing devices of some sort on display in the 'modern' classroom, sometimes (depending on the country) lots of them, although the room essentially looks and functions the same way. The arrangement and nature of these ICT devices don't fundamentally alter the architecture of the room, nor what occurs inside it. In others words, the changes are additive, not transformative. (It is of course possible to provide pictures of some of today's 'innovative' classrooms that complicate this simple and popular narrative, as well as to ask some fundamental and important questions about what such pictures may obscure and what they illuminate, but I'll ignore such inconvenient complications here.)

Side note: Over a dozen years ago I visited the launch of a computer lab at a school in Cambodia. The headmaster had proudly transformed a room formerly used for sewing instruction into a 'technology lab', with a new PC atop each desk in place of the 'old-fashioned' technology of the sewing machine, with neat rows of students facing forward toward a teacher who was energetically shouting instructions.

Let's also put aside for a moment whether all of this technology 'makes a difference' (as well as perhaps more relevant questions about how and under what circumstances ICTs have an 'impact'). Let's ignore discussions about whether or not today's classrooms are a legacy of a 'factory model of education' that once existed but is no longer useful, or about the potential need to re-think school architecture in the age of ICT. Let's also ignore related 'big picture' issues around policymaking and planning.

Let's focus instead just on the technology itself.

Many regular readers of the EduTech blog are no doubt familiar with scenes of ICT equipment sitting unused in schools, locked away in computer labs or even still resting peacefully (and undamaged!) in unopenedboxes. Often times, getting teachers and students to use such equipment, let alone to use it 'productively', can be a rather tall order, for all sorts of reasons. Nevertheless, education ministries, local educational authorities, and schools around the world are buying lots of technology: PCs, laptops, tablets, projectors, and lots of other devices and peripherals.

What are they doing to make sure that this stuff doesn't get stolen?

No matter how strategic an investment or policy on technology use in education might be, and whatever side of the fence you find yourself on related to whether or not ICTs in education are 'worth it', there is little disagreement that such purchases are indeed *never* worth it if the equipment itself is stolen. You can't use this stuff if it isn't there. (Nor, it should be noted, can you use this stuff if it is there but not usable or accessible, but that's another issue.) Increasingly, the most valuable parts of a education system's IT infrastructure will not be found in the physical equipment itself, but rather in the data transmitted across and stored in the system at various levels and places. That said, as numerous recent news reports from countries around the world demonstrate (here's one from South Africa, for example), securing the equipment itself remains a rather important and acute challenge for many schools and education systems.

For what it's worth, and based on conversations with government officials, IT personnel, vendors, teachers and headmasters and visits to hundreds of schools rolling out ICTs over the past decade in scores of countries, rich and poor, and in urban, rural and suburban environments, here are:

Ten common (and a few uncommon) approaches to preventing the theft of computers, laptops and tablets in schools around the world

1. Lock it down and/or chain it up (physically)

For all of the (important) talk, policymaking and planning related to computer security within education systems, of preventing things like data theft, identity theft, and unauthorized access to networks, systems and data (all areas where almost all education systems could do *much* better, in my experience), in lots of places there is still also a lot that needs to be done to combat the old fashioned kind of computer theft: when people just pick up something that doesn't belong to them and walk away with it.

One obvious way to help prevent this sort of thing is pretty straightforward, and so most schools do it to varying degrees -- they buy and install lots of locks, of various types, in various places. For example, it is quite common to see schools do the following things in order to protect ICT equipment from theft:

• Lock the door to the room where ICT equipment is kept.
• Lock the windows and/or put bars on them.
• Designate a special storage room for ICT equipment. Store equipment there when it is not in use -- and lock the room!
• Install (and use) specialized physical locks for desktops and laptops and other equipment (e.g. locking desktop PCs to the desks on which they sit).

One argument often made *against* the purchase and use of devices like laptops and tablets in schools has been that the small and portable nature of such devices make them especially vulnerable to theft. This holds true for smaller devices as well: phones; interactive voting devices, or 'clickers'; probeware and sensors that can be connected to such devices, etc. Fair enough! But such things are presumably not going to go away nor become less useful any time soon (nor presumably will the increase in size). Within classrooms, charging stations for laptops or tablets can also serve as secure storage for a variety of devices.

It is worth noting that chargers themselves may be attractive targets for theft -- as well as non-ICT equipment that is vital for the use of computers in many places (the fans and air conditioners that help keep computer labs cool, for example).

Less attention is sometimes paid to the security of devices while they are in transit within the school. Some schools transport laptops or tablets between rooms using a dedicated mobile carts (sometimes referred to as COWs, or 'computers on wheels') which can be locked -- and lock up the carts in a separate room when they are not in use. (One side note about COWs: Because these things can be used by thieves as a convenient means by which to take lots of your laptops out of your school quickly, you may not want to store them near the entrances to the school -- and you may want to consider ones where the wheels can be locked.)

2. Lock it down and/or chain it up (electronically)

In addition to physical measures to prevent theft, a variety of electronic measures are possible.

At a basic level, requiring the people log into machines before they can be used is almost always a good idea. There are many ways this can be done, which provide different levels of security (at the level of the operating system, the BIOS, etc.).

It is possible to create electronic 'ring fences' around schools (or parts of schools), so that if computer equipment leaves this area, it no longer functions (in whole or in part).

It is also possible to remotely disable computers, should they be reported stolen (provided they connect to the Internet somehow, of course). Alternatively, it is possible to require that the computer connect to the Internet or a network at certain intervals in order to keep functioning fully.

Such measures don't always really prevent the physical theft of equipment, of course, but they make the equipment itself much less valuable, in that it can't be used once it is stolen. Of course, there are potentially ways around such electronic 'locks', depending on how good they are and the sophistication of the thieves. And: Thieves who are unfamiliar with such measures may not be deterred from stealing equipment in the first place (even if there are later unable to use or re-sell it).

3. Hide it -- or at least obscure it

No matter how many (or how few) physical or electronic/digital 'locks' you have on equipment, there are a number of simple and low cost ways to make theft less likely. Storing equipment in inaccessible (or less accessible) places (like a locked computer room) is of course one example of this, but there are many others as well. Simply closing the shades (and not placing equipment near windows) can help. Places tablets in desks or laptops on computer carts when they are not in use can help. Leaving empty computer boxes stacked outside the school after new equipment is delivered essentially advertises to potential thieves that there is something in the school that might interest them -- don't do this!

There are many other potential signals to thieves that computers are in the school -- and where they might be. In many hot climates, the presence of air conditioners attached to windows for some rooms, but not others, may suggest where the computer room might be. Bars on the windows and locks on doors can send similar signals.

If you have a choice, not locating school technology labs or computer storage rooms on the ground floor or near the front entrance of the school can be a wise choice.

(Side note: In some schools and district education offices, the rooms which were previously used to 'safely store' textbooks -- which may as a result have gone unused in some cases -- have been converted to 'safely store' computers -- which, as with the textbooks previously, then also remain unused.)

4. Take special care after hours, on weekends and during school holidays

It should be obvious that it might be useful to consider different approaches to security when school is in session, and when it is not.

During long holidays, many education systems physically repossess many devices in schools so that they can be stored safely in a central, secure location. At this time they can also do a number of other things, including take a general inventory, update software and load new content, as well as make any needed repairs.

It is perhaps worth noting that the transportation of equipment between schools and district/ministry offices for safekeeping can represent a particularly opportune time for thieves to strike, so plan accordingly.

5. Keep an accurate and up-to-date inventory

It can be easy for equipment to disappear if you don't have a record that you have it. Keeping accurate and up-to-date lists of your inventory can help you quickly identify when things may have gone missing. Also, the fact that you take such inventories regularly can signal to potential thieves within your schools or education system that you are paying attention!

Keeping track of serial numbers is standard practice in most places these days (and something that should always be done). Affixing bar codes to individual items and then using scanners to assist with the inventory process is increasingly common as well. (A side note about scanners: You might consider using a mobile phone app instead of buying separate scanners, which break down, go missing, or even get stolen themselves. One clever way for insiders to facilitate regular small-scale theft is to 'lose' the scanners, which makes it difficult to keep up-to-date inventories; by the time new scanners are procured and delivered, some of the equipment may be long gone.) RFID tags are increasingly in use in some education systems as well.

Note that this issue of inventorying can be complicated in practice in many instances by the phenomenon of schools keeping multiple sets of 'ICT ledgers'. I have visited more than one school that keeps an inventory list that it shows to the central ministry which only includes the equipment that was centrally provided, omitting equipment that was e.g. donated locally, purchased by parents, bought by the school itself and/or provided by local educational authorities. Schools may be disinclined to include equipment obtained via other means on the 'official' list, as they might worry that this would signal to the central authorities that they may not need additional equipment. I once spoke to a school IT administrator who kept separate lists that he showed to the parent-teacher association, the district education office, a local philanthropic donor, and the national education authorities. The actual master list was a closely guarded secret, only shared with the school principal.

In addition to taking physical inventories, you can take 'virtual inventories' at a distance as well. If, for example, a device hasn't logged onto the network for a long time, you might want to investigate.

Make sure that you keep your inventory lists in a safe place -- and have back-ups. If someone steals your list, you might be in trouble! (And: Do you really need to publish your inventory list on your school web site in a place accessible to the public?)

6. Watch over it closely

hey check this out, I think someone is stealing our pico projector!

People are an important part of any an approach to preventing the theft of ICT equipment of schools. Posting guards outside computer facilities is an expensive or drastic approach, but, where there are guards in schools already (for better or for worse), instructing them to pay particular attention to places where computer equipment is found is a rather good idea.

Installing security cameras can help (although even considering this sort of thing should bring up larger questions about 'surveillance' in schools), whether the resulting video feed is viewed within the school itself or at some remote location. Cameras that aren't actually connected to anything can even provide some level of deterrence. (I have been in schools where they took old web cams and pointed them at the technology room. "These don't actually work", an IT guy at a school once told me, "but the kids and teachers don't know this!")

As mentioned, conducting regular inventories can be an important way to help monitor equipment.

While it may not prevent the theft of equipment (especially if thieves don't know it has been installed on devices), tracking software ('find my phone' is one well known example of this general type of thing) can potentially help you figure out where the equipment it after it has been stolen.

Alarms (on doors, on equipment) can help alert people to where a potential theft may be in progress or has recently occurred.

Designating teachers (or even students) with special responsibility to make sure equipment is not stolen can be another useful, low cost way to help prevent theft. (If no one feels responsible for ensuring that equipment doesn't disappear, no one *is* responsible as a practical matter.)

7. Know who has the key(s)

Your security plan should include attention not only to where the equipment is, what it is, and who is looking after it, but also who has the keys (and master passwords) that can provide access to it. Change keys and/or passwords at regular intervals, as might be possible/appropriate/affordable. Have a policy about key possession, use and duplication and the access to master passwords -- and the storage of 'extra' keys.

Side note: A clever thief may use a key and then break a door only once he is leaving, as a way to throw suspicion away from people who have access to the keys. While a heist is in progress, a broken door would certainly suggest to passersby that something might be wrong.

The people who know best how to steal your equipment are probably those who work with it most often. Here's an exercise to try: Ask them where there are holes in the security procedures and systems. IT people are often especially good at 'hacks', both physical and digital. Ask some of them how to hack your security and then plan some related defensive measures. (Education systems in rich countries may hire an outside security firm to do 'penetration testing', i.e. engage a group that tries to steal equipment so that education officials can learn what isn't working and make any needed changes to their policies, practices and procedures. This remains relatively rare in most places, of course -- although, where related insurance is available, this might be a function that could be performed by the insurance company).

8. Make it look distinctive

Where countries procure very large numbers of educational laptops or tablets at a national or regional scale, ministries of education may wish to consider requiring the manufacturer, assembler or distributor to ensure that the devices looks distinctive in some way. (Maybe they have a red cover, for example, or a picture of national flag on them.)

Even where the equipment itself doesn't look distinctive, it is quite common for logos to be burned, embossed or etched into equipment marking it as e.g. property of an education system or school and/or for stickers (less permanent, obviously, but better than nothing) with the same message to be affixed to the equipment.

Side note: When the OLPC XO (the famous "$100 laptop") was first being marketed, some of the leaders of the sponsoring organization liked to note that the design of the little green and white devices was so distinctive that, if they were stolen and made available for re-sale in local markets, people would immediately know that these had been stolen from schools, as there was no other way to get them, which would help with theft prevention. (Based on anecdotal evidence, I believe that this was often actually been the case.) I have heard proponents of the use of iPads in schools in very poor countries where the devices were not sold in local markets make similar claims. (What making such arguments, OLPC folks sometimes referenced the appearance of postal trucks in the U.S. "No one steals postal trucks in the U.S.," went the argument, "because they are so unique and easily recognizable by everyone". I always thought that this was a clever comment ... even if the metaphor was often not immediately understood by policymakers in other countries who were not at all familiar with the distinctive jeeps used by the U.S. Postal Service with the steering wheel on the 'wrong side'!)

9. If you don't own it, they can't steal it from you

One way for schools not to have computer equipment stolen is not to own any of it in the first place -- or to own as little of it as possible.

In some more 'advanced' economies, leasing (not purchasing) equipment may be an option, and, as part of leasing arrangements, responsibility for security can potentially be transferred (at least in part) to the company that actually owns the equipment.

The growing trend in many education systems towards 'bring your own device' (or 'BYOD', sometimes this is referred to as 'BYOT', with 'technology' substituting for 'device) policies and approaches, where students and/or teachers bring their own ICT equipment to schools and use it, instead of using equipment provided by the school itself, can dramatically change the security dynamic when it comes to preventing the theft of such devices. If you own the device yourself, you may be much more incentivized to make sure that it is not stolen than if it belong to the school or education system! (BYOD policies don't necessarily lead to less theft in all circumstances, of course. In some circumstances, someone may be more willing to steal a tablet from another student than from the school itself.)

The difference between stealing a computing device that is being used in a school setting, as opposed to a computer that belongs to a school, may seem a semantic and legalistic distinction of little practical relevance, but it can be a compelling one to certain groups within educational bureaucracies. (The most important thing for teachers and students is that the equipment is there, not who owns it!) That said, it can be useful to note that who owns a particular device can impact whether or not it is stolen -- and who cares.

10. Educate your users and personnel

There are many additional measures that can be utilized to help prevent the theft of ICT equipment from schools that can be boiled down to one word: education. Training of IT personnel, school administrators and teachers -- and students too! -- about theft prevention and general related 'good practices' can help a lot. Posting signs supporting such messages can be useful. Including items related to security as part of standard 'acceptable use policies' is a good idea. (Standard in many education systems, AUPs serve as informal contracts of sorts, laying out rules for students, parents and teachers that must be agreed to in order to utilize ICT equipment).

Many other things can be done to help to prevent the theft of ICT equipment in schools, of course. All such measures carry with them various costs -- of money, accessibility, and usability. Schools and education systems have to consider important related trade-offs between prevention, policing, and accessibility. Given enough time and energy and smarts, dedicated thieves can probably find their way around all of these (and other) anti-theft measures. As with approaches to security in general, a multi-layered approach is typically best. A combination of measures, big and small, involving a variety of different people, incentivized in different ways to be part of the process, can help where any one single approach is insufficient.

Note: The image at the top of this blog post ("if you don't pay attention, I'll steal this tablet right out of your pocket!) comes from the Project Gutenberg archives via Wikimedia Commons. The image used at the end of this post of the locked gates at Harvard Yard is courtesy of Occupy harvard also via Wikimedia Commons. Both are in the public domain. The second image (of a locked door at the Tajjar Building in Pakistan provided by the Wikipedian Soban) also comes via Wikimedia Commons and are used according to the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The image of two children outside a closed door ("hey check this out, I think someone is stealing our pico projector!") was provided by Deutsche Fotothek of Germany's Saxon State Library / State and University Library Dresden (SLUB) to Wikimedia Commons as part of a cooperation project. It is used according to the terms of its Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

cross posted at blogs.worldbank.org/edutech

Michael Trucano is the World Bank's Senior Education & Technology Policy Specialist and Global Lead for Innovation in Education, serving as the organization's focal point on issues at the intersection of technology use and education in middle- and low-income countries and emerging markets around the world. Read more at blogs.worldbank.org/edutech.

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OVERALL RATING:

TabPilot Tablet Manager earned my highest rating. Its unique functions put it in a superior position among its competitors. Teachers will especially appreciate having more control over their classroom devices without having to contact IT, including being able to install and uninstall apps spontaneously.

TOP FEATURES

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● FocalPoint, a browser app, can be set to restrict access or allow exploration of external Web sites.