With the proliferation of modern technology and 1:1 device initiatives in K-12 school districts, the education industry is rapidly becoming more connected. This technological integration is crucial for better educational outcomes and enhanced learning experiences. Due to the versatility, affordability, and security features of Chromebooks, they are now the most popular choice in most K-12 school districts that focus on 1:1 learning initiatives.
Although Chromebooks are considered the optimal choice to foster a better digital learning environment, schools still struggle with Chrome device management due to a lack of strategic IT asset management protocols and systems in place. They encounter a range of Chromebook management challenges including issues with accessibility, security, optimal utilization, allocation, and more.
How can schools effectively manage their fleet of Chromebook devices to ensure a seamless learning experience? Let’s dig deeper into Chromebook management for schools to find out!
Chromebook classroom management challenges
As K-12 school districts embrace Chromebooks for digital learning purposes, their IT leaders encounter a range of challenges that impede the smooth functioning and management of these devices. It is imperative to identify these challenges, learn how to manage a Chromebook and implement robust IT asset management tools to help track these devices in real time.
1. Device allocation and Chromebook tracking
In K-12 school districts, IT teams are responsible for the provisioning and deployment of hundreds or thousands of IT devices every year, sometimes across multiple campuses. Ensuring that every student has received the relevant hardware and software is crucial for a smooth learning experience. However, the sheer volume of the Chromebooks deployed makes it almost impossible to manually track which devices are allocated to which students. Students may end up getting the wrong devices with irrelevant software installed on them or may not get a Chromebook at all. Most school districts lack proper systems that can easily track the allocation of these Chromebooks, and their usage, monitor their utilization, and help retrieve them at the end of every school year.
2. Software asset management
The challenge of access to the right learning tools doesn’t end with the allocation and deployment of Chromebooks but instead, it extends to the management of software and applications installed on these devices. The lack of mobile device management (MDM) platforms in schools gives rise to ineffective software asset management. Without ITAM and MDM systems in place, there is no way for IT teams to ensure that all deployed devices have the required software installed on them. In addition, IT professionals also need to ensure that the updated versions of software are installed on devices for a consistent classroom environment.
K-12 IT leaders face another challenge: effectively managing software licenses and ensuring compliance. Without an automated license tracking system, IT teams struggle to:
- Renew licenses on time
- Optimize the number of license seats
- Accurately determine if software usage complies with vendor agreements
Failure to adhere to these license agreements can result in significant penalties for school districts.
3. Preventive maintenance and device downtime
There are plenty of benefits to empowering students with the Chromebook technology but the lack of infrastructure to support these digital initiatives can result in significant challenges for IT leaders. K-12 school districts grapple with issues like device malfunctions, breakages, and general wear and tear of Chromebooks. A lack of standardized processes to manage the servicing and maintenance of Chromebooks can result in longer device downtime and costly repairs. Inadequate device servicing can lead to more frequent device failures, shorter device lifespan, and disrupted student learning, causing frustration for students. On the other hand, IT professionals will always have a higher ticket volume to resolve, resulting in longer resolution time and decreased IT productivity.
4. Lost or stolen Chromebooks
Widespread adoption of Chromebooks in school districts is resulting in a surge of lost or stolen devices. According to a recent report, 77,000 laptops and similar devices were marked as lost or stolen during the 2021-22 school year in Chicago alone. The absence of custody management systems contributes to the loss of a major chunk of these devices. As most school districts are not tracking their devices in real-time, there is no way for IT teams to accurately follow the trail of the device’s custody whenever it goes missing.
Not having a robust IT asset management platform contributes significantly to the loss of these devices. With an ITAM tool, there is no real-time visibility on where the device is, who it is checked out to, and its current status. This also leads to poor accountability, making it difficult to recover misplaced devices.
5. IT service management challenges
K-12 IT teams are often faced with the critical challenge of managing vast volumes of tickets and service requests. Sometimes, schools do not have a proper channel for managing and responding to these requests on time. For example, a faculty member may initiate a request for a broken printer by reaching out to staff directly, resulting in lost productivity on both ends. Also, handling a huge influx of requests manually slows down all related processes –the IT team may find it difficult to specify the correct maintenance checklist for the technician for each request.
Without a proper channel to raise requests, you will also see an increase in issue resolution times. While many industries are now implementing tools like Service Catalog to facilitate their end-users, most K-12 schools still lack such a system. Inefficiencies in IT service management can hamper the educational experience, disrupting operations and increasing overall costs for your school.
6. Poor security posture
Cyber security remains a pervasive issue in schools, and breaches can trigger losses running into millions of dollars. According to K-12 Cybersecurity Resource Center research, at least 348 cybersecurity incidents were reported by public K-12 institutions during the 2019 academic calendar year alone. Considering the rise in cyber attacks, Chromebooks provided to staff and students must come with built-in security capabilities or use external software that provides additional security to protect your and your students’ valuable data.
Ransomware attackers can hold hostage a school’s central IT network, to which potentially thousands of students connect their devices, and therefore compromise not only student data but any administrative information stored on the network. Schools must make an extra effort not only to implement security measures but also to nurture a safe tech culture within the school’s information ecosystem.
Strategies to successfully manage Chromebooks in K-12 schools
Efficient Chromebook management in schools involves streamlined deployment, maintenance, and usage of Chromebooks in a learning environment. It also includes creating Chromebook lifecycle management policies to ensure that the school districts are getting the most value out of their investment, all while creating a conducive educational experience for their students. Here are a few strategies that can help IT leaders achieve this equilibrium:
1. Implement ITAM for device and custody tracking
Due to the high volume of Chromebooks deployed to students every year, it has become a crucial need for school districts to implement ITAM for accurate device and custody tracking. With ITAM software in place, IT teams can have real-time access to the device’s status, custodian, location, and more.
Robust ITAM software has advanced tracking capabilities, allowing teams to view the entire history of any Chromebook right from procurement. You can drill down the information to all previous custodians of the device, historical data on servicing and maintenance activities performed on the device, and the number of useful years left on that device.
ITAM’s advanced custody and location tracking features allow you to easily track misplaced or misallocated devices. Furthermore, in the event of asset loss or theft, you’ll be able to take action quickly and start the Chromebook recovery process as soon as possible.
2. Track Chromebook repairs
Device breakdowns are inevitable and are usually one of the main causes of operational downtime. In a school environment, they disrupt students’ learning and may impact their educational milestones. It is imperative to have a process in place that minimizes these breakdowns as much as possible.
IT asset management empowers IT professionals to track every device repair, ensuring that the repair activity is being performed as per quality standards and is not taking longer than necessary. Meanwhile, replacement devices can be checked out to students so they can continue with their classes.
Tracking Chromebook repairs is essential so IT managers can maintain an accurate history of these repairs for audit and procurement purposes. This tracking also allows IT professionals to monitor the condition of these devices over time and proactively determine when these devices should be disposed of and replaced with new Chromebooks.
3. MDM action commands
Monitoring hundreds of devices across multiple locations can be quite daunting and time-consuming for K-12 IT professionals. It becomes an even bigger challenge when they have to take action on Chromebooks remotely. For example, if a student has misplaced their Chromebook and has raised an asset loss ticket in ITSM, the IT team will have to access the system and lock the device remotely or wipe data from it for security purposes. If their ITAM is not integrated with their MDM platform, they will spend time locating the device first. On the other hand, if the school district has implemented an IT asset management system with built-in capabilities to take actions from a single platform, it would simplify the process and make it more efficient. This would also ensure that security measures are followed and there is no data breach.
Another common use case for K-12 schools is password reset for devices. If students have forgotten their passwords, they can let IT professionals know and get their passwords reset immediately through MDM management commands.
4. Standardize Chromebook usage policies
To ensure a secure, productive, and equitable learning environment, it is imperative that IT leaders in schools set up protocols and policies regarding the usage of Chromebooks. Implementing device utilization policies not only positively impacts the educational experience but also helps increase the ROI on Chromebook investments by enhancing their lifespan. Here are a few common aspects around which the Chromebook usage policies can be created:
- Enforce content filtering to ensure that the students are not accessing social media, gaming sites, or media browsing sites like Netflix and Amazon Prime through their Chromebooks.
- Control where the students can download the relevant applications and software from.
- Block access to unauthorized downloads to ensure that the students are not accidentally downloading a virus from these sites.
- Define clear guidelines for handling Chromebooks, accessing school networks, using public WiFi on the devices, and instructions on reporting an issue.
- Set up access controls to ensure that students can only access the data and applications they need for their learning. Customize the access based on grade, campus, or educational needs based on the student’s learning stage.
5. Implement remote tracking
IT asset management tools come with an array of features and capabilities that enable IT teams to track school Chromebooks remotely. From setting up geolocation tracking to conducting internal audits, IT teams can take measures to ensure that all Chromebooks are being used as per the school’s guidelines and are accounted for by students and faculty. Remote tracking through ITAM allows school districts to track a large number of Chromebooks efficiently, reducing manual effort and freeing up resources for more critical and strategic tasks.
6. Enhance security for Chromebooks
Securing your Chromebook fleet against security threats is crucial. School data consists of sensitive student and faculty information that can be leaked during a cyber attack. Although Chromebooks are designed with built-in security features, implementing additional security measures to build a more comprehensive security framework is always a good practice. Here are a few tips that IT administrators can make use of while rolling out the security policies for Chromebooks:
- Implement two-factor authentication (2FA) for access to student accounts and ensure that students follow best practices when creating passwords.
- Utilize your ITAM and MDM tools to identify vulnerabilities in your system and regularly perform patch management exercises to ensure that the devices are protected against potential threats.
- Make sure that all Chromebooks are regularly updated to the latest versions of operating systems. Also, ensure that all software applications are updated so you are always compliant with software licensing agreements.
- Blacklist IP addresses and websites that are unauthentic to minimize the possibility of students downloading malicious software on their Chrome devices.
7. Anticipate timely procurement of Chromebooks
With limited IT budgets for K-12 school districts, streamlined Chromebook procurement has become crucial. IT leaders ensure that the right amount of Chromebooks is acquired before every school year. They have to analyze data on Chromebook usage from previous years to anticipate the procurement needs for the upcoming year. They also have to ensure that the existing Chromebooks are not under or over-utilized before acquiring new devices.
If IT teams are tracking their Chromebooks through ITAM, they’ll easily know how many devices are being used, how many are in maintenance, and how many Chromebooks are sitting in storage. This helps them make informed decisions while ordering a new fleet of Chromebooks. They’ll also be able to analyze which Chromebooks are nearing their end-of-life and would need to be replaced so they can proactively add that count to the number of devices procured. By leveraging ITAM for yearly procurement, schools can ensure that their students have access to necessary learning equipment at all times and can maximize the value of this equipment simultaneously.
8. Alerts and notifications
School districts have to stay compliant with numerous government, IT, and other security policies. Non-compliance with any such policy can land them in heavy fines and other penalties. Managing Chromebooks through IT asset management software empowers schools to set up relevant alerts and notifications to ensure that the devices are being used optimally and are compliant with the regulations. For example, IT teams can set up alerts for whenever a new custodian checks out a device or when a scheduled maintenance date is approaching for a Chromebook. Alerts can be set up according to school year timelines, so IT teams are notified in advance when the Chromebooks need to be retrieved. Some of the useful alerts and notifications to set up are:
- License expiry date approaching
- Software license renewal reminder
- Check-in and check-out of assets
- Unauthorized access attempts and more
ITAM best practices for Chromebook management in K-12
K-12 schools constantly need to adopt new technologies and regularly update the existing software. Keeping this in mind, here are some best practices for K-12 to manage IT assets:
- Well-designed strategies: K-12 districts need concrete strategies to respond to the increasing use of 1:1 computing in education. Sometimes schools are underfunded, too, so you must maintain existing technological infrastructure to maximize its value.
- Shift to cloud-based ITAM tool: Augmented by IT asset management software, K-12 operations can be accelerated and tailored to address growing IT challenges. A cloud-based system not only allows your school to securely manage important data but also helps you understand and analyze the condition of your IT assets to better manage them. Being able to access data from a consolidated cloud allows school staff and administrators to quickly execute several operational tasks without delay.
- Data syncing: Schools need to stay aware of the changing technological landscape so that newer servers and other assets can be installed to support advanced educational software. ITAM software will help you comply with the changing environment by tracking your existing software and hardware, and sync with updates as needed. Syncs help you keep all data updated and secure to be accessed even offline when required.
- Improved efficiency through automation: Manually managing devices like Chromebooks, large quantities of IT peripherals, and other assets can be cumbersome for schools. With ITAM, device information can be kept in a central repository accessible only to authorized users.
The cornerstone of creating a holistic learning environment today is employing tools like IT asset management software to overcome K-12 challenges. By efficiently managing hardware and software, you can save money, avoid classroom disruptions, and sustain the use of high-value school assets.
