It’s not asecret that the world is going digital or that mobile devices have changed the way we operate in our daily lives. It’s also unsurprising that mobile devices are infiltrating classrooms from kindergarten all the way up to graduate school.
This is an exciting time for teachers, administrators and IT departments as they have tools available to them that they’ve never had before to deliver educational resources.
With all of these advancements, there are an equal number of challenges associated with advanced technology in the classroom. One major concern is how to get the right applications and content to each student to enable mobile learning. With teachers already responsible for supervising the traditional classroom, adding another set of eyes to an entire fleet of mobile devices can be daunting.
Imagine a classroom with thousands of students and a mobile device for each, there’s no way a school’s IT department, much less one teacher, can ensure that each student is using the technology appropriately unless they have a management tool that can assist them. There are three categories that need to be addressed when dealing with the explosion of mobile in the classroom:
1. Proliferation of mobile devices
Schools all over the country are implementing mobile components to their daily routines. It’s becoming more and more commonplace to walk into a classroom and find students reading or taking notes on tablets; this is a direct response to how today’s students prefer to learn. By utilizing technology that they probably already have in their own bag, e.g., a tablet or a smart phone, teachers can capitalize on a student’s passion for technology while combining it with classroom material. For schools using mobile technology in the classroom, education leaders are not only concerned with how to ensure that today’s culture of digital natives are staying on task and accessing school approved resources — but also how to guarantee that they can monitor and track all of the devices.
For example, if a K-12 school receives funding enabling them to purchase mobile devices for their classrooms, then school administration needs to have the capability to accurately track and monitor where the devices are at all times so they can protect their investments.
IT administrators are tasked with ensuring devices are compliant with school policies and can monitor violations in real time. This empowers the school to maximize their mobile investments by increasing IT efficiency and reducing costs associated with managing mobility. In many cases, schools are lacking the IT resources necessary to monitor thousands of devices without a third party management tool in place. The burden needs to be taken off IT and a solution needs to be put in place that allows a small team or even just one person to manage the entire mobile environment. It’s critical to have a solution that enables schools to manage their devices by locations, grades, classrooms and even by teachers.
Another concern plaguing teachers now is the potential for students to bring their own mobile devices into the classroom and have the ability to access harmful or disruptive content. In both scenarios, administrators need to ensure that they are facilitating a nurturing educational environment and also remain in compliance with government mandated regulations. Schools are looking to subject matter experts to manage their environments and act as that additional layer of security necessary when tasked with managing students in the classroom.
2. Explosion of educational apps
Once the device has been addressed, the focus needs to switch to the apps and content on those devices. Mobility in education goes well beyond just the devices and is now moving toward managing and distributing the applications included on them. There are more than70,000 educational applicationsthat are available to help students with everything from vocabulary words to understanding the anatomy of the human brain. With this vast and diverse array of applications, educators need to not only sort out which will be the most beneficial to their programs but then how to control their use. This includes distributing the chosen app to the right students.
For instance, you wouldn’t ask a kindergartner and a senior in high school to download the same learning application — for obvious reasons. IT departments need to have the capability to push specific apps and content over-the-air to the right students based on location, device type and profiles present on that device in order to facilitate personalized learning.
