Many K-12 districts have invested significantly in Apple devices, but have not invested equally in making sure the devices work the way educators and students actually need them to.
This results in a gap that shows up the same way across every district we’ve worked with facing this problem, including:
- Devices being deployed, but teachers not feeling in control
- Students finding workarounds
- IT teams spending time on classroom-level problems that should never reach a ticket
The tools to fix this exist. The gap that causes it is almost always located in the configuration of the tools.
The Three Layers that Make Classroom Technology Work
There are three layers that work together to make classroom technology run smoothly.
The first is getting IT the tools they need to control devices at scale. That way, they can:
- Manage every device in a district from a single console
- Push apps, enforce restrictions, and update software without touching every device
- Stop managing devices one by one and start maintaining your entire fleet from a single place
The second layer is giving the educators control in the classroom. Jamf for K-12 has features that:
- Let teachers lock devices to a single app
- Allow teachers to share resources to the whole class
- Give teachers visibility to what students have open on their devices
- Give students the right visibility without control access
Finally, the third layer is adding consistency beyond the school day, especially now that students are often taking devices home with them or on-the-go. With Jamf Parent, which is an app control under Jamf for K-12, it is easy to:
- Set consistent device security and restrictions no matter what network it is connected to
- Maintain consistent boundaries in all locations at the device level
What the Best Deployments Have in Common
When MBS works with K-12 districts, the deployments that go most seamlessly share one thing: everyone's needs were considered before configuration began.
That means asking teachers what they actually need in the classroom. It means thinking through what a student's first experience with a new device should feel like. And it means making sure security and compliance requirements are built in from the start, not added on later.
The technology is only as good as the implementation behind it. We can help with that if you aren’t sure where to start, and our partner, Jamf, offers a free trial for K-12 institutions.
Want to learn more?
Contact MBS to discuss classroom technology for your district.
