Mobile Devices in Education
The education industry is an incredibly exciting area in terms of the potential for tablet computing devices. The growth of usage among the world’s 300 million-plus educators and students is truly astounding — having replaced PC computing devices by a 3:1 margin as time moves on, smart devices are becoming the tool of choice among educators and students alike. This will likely only increase in intensity with the release and adoption of custom textbook composition and publication tools across operating systems and device families. Syllabus apps, class-level collaboration and course requirements can be easily shared, while everyone in school brings their own device of choice. A solid mobile device management solution is critical to knowing what is on each device, and making sure educators are equipped with or are equipping their students with the latest information.
Techorchard in Education
The Challenge
A local high school was in the midst of a high-visibility one-to-one deployment of iPads to both students and teachers. This deployment was the first of its kind within the district and needed to go well as it would serve as a blueprint for future deployments across the district. Issues faced included:
- No plan for deployment of devices to students or teachers.
- End users were not trained on tablet usage, no way to ensure that tablets would “move the needle” in an educational setting.
- No tools available to manage hardware, software, or to monitor behavior of the devices once they were deployed to students.
- Teachers and academic staff were not trained on hardware or software, and were expected to “self-teach” and “succeed.”
The Techorchard Solution
With mobile technology changing as rapidly as it is, the district wanted to build a solid foundation of tools and teacher-skills, while staying flexible in its application to best take advantage of new technology, apps, and methodology.
Techorchard was tasked with evaluating the goals of the district and the resources available to the district; and with providing an end to end solution for the successful deployment and integration of iPads into the student and teacher environment; as well as the ongoing monitoring and training of both students and teachers. In order to deliver for this high-school district, techorchard:
- Built a tactical plan for deployment of hundreds of iPads to students and teachers.
- Set up a management platform and tools that enabled the administration of both the device hardware, the applications on the iPads, as well as the management of the behavior of the devices once they were deployed and live in the classroom.
- Trained IT and Academic staff on proper device management.
- Developed best practices for relevant and effective iPad and app use in the classroom.
- Set up continuing education curriculum for teachers to deepen their skills with tablets in the classroom.