10 Reasons Why School Needs an MDM Solution

Education provisioning has undergone significant changes over the past two decades. Today students have access to a wide array of portable devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. The ubiquity of these mobile devices is becoming prevalent on almost every educational campus and even in some classrooms across the globe. 

While schools that allow the bringing of mobile phones in the campuses without drafting the usage terms and regulations, often encounter challenges in enforcing the policies concerning user privacy and security. To remain competitive in this ever-changing economy, educational institutions need to remain abreast of innovative strategies and approaches to create an immersive learning experience for students no matter where they are. Schools all over the world are implementing digital pedagogy to enlighten students about the concept and implementation of shared devices, 1:1 programs, and Bring-your-own-devices (BYOD) programs.

An effective mobile learning strategy can, however, be challenging. Mobile devices used by students for educational purposes require monitoring, administration, and security measures. Unfortunately, many schools find it hard to manage, monitor, and maintain a multitude of mobile devices used by the students no matter if it is driven by Bring-your-own device policy or institutional-owned deployment.

As a result of these challenges, it becomes imperative for educational institutions to find better ways to manage their device fleets. Therefore, they resort to MDM solutions. 

What is MDM, and how does it work?

MDM or Mobile Device Management is the amalgamation of tools, technology, and processes that enhances the security of an organization’s assets by allowing the IT admins to monitor, administer and secure technological devices such as laptops, phones, tablets, and other end-points. 

With the solution of MDM, the IT admins in any enterprise can gain remote access to control the managed endpoints. IT admins can deploy, authorize and administer a predetermined set of security policies to seamlessly secure their critical data on a given network (e.g., a school’s network).

An MDM solution leverages a client-server architecture. In its simplest form, these devices mentioned act as clients while the MDM server remotely administers settings, apps, and policies using over-the-air (OTA) programming and updates.

Why Do Schools Need MDM Solutions?

As mobile devices become more prevalent in the educational curriculum, it poses a double-edged sword as the utilization of mobile devices allows educational institutions to expand their classrooms. But, this also opens gates of exposure to several potential vulnerabilities on online networks and can offer students opportunities to access inappropriate content online under unmanaged circumstances.

We have compiled ten reasons why schools need a reliable Mobile Device Management solution more than ever today.

1. Single console to manage all your devices

The current generation of school children is digital natives. Even before they start going to school, children are already exposed to mobile phones, apps, and online tools. With technology all around them, they become accustomed to it. The digitized educational system is appealing to them, and they are eager to use mobile devices and apps in classrooms.

Therefore, it is prudent for educators to adopt, implement and utilize new technologies to create immersive learning experiences without worrying about data security. It can sometimes become cumbersome to hover through the internet in search of a reliable technological solution to invest in. What if you could manage all the mobile devices from a single dashboard? An MDM solution empowers the educational institutes to manage Chromebooks, Android, iOS MDM, and macOS devices from a single dashboard.

2. Ensure a distraction-free learning

Mobile devices can be a huge distraction for students. This is one of the most common concerns of educators and parents. Rather than being simply allegations, these concerns are substantiated by facts.

The average American adult checks their phone 160 times per day as per statistics. What about the younger generation?

Another study displayed that 92% of students send text messages while spending their day at school.

As natural as it may seem, the effectiveness of the studying process decreases when students are more focused on their cell phones instead of the instructions they are receiving from the educators. Information acquisition is reduced, and students’ grades suffer.

The purpose of MDM for schools is to remedy this problem. By implementing innovative MDM solutions, IT administrators can impose access restrictions on entertainment apps, gaming websites, social media platforms, and messengers. That’s a great way to ensure that mobile devices are only used for educational purposes without being a route of distraction for students.

3. Block access to inappropriate online content

The internet contains a large amount of inappropriate content, including games, gambling, pornography, and potential abuse. More than ever, children and youth are at risk of being exposed to violent content, gender stereotypes, and explicit sexual content. Psychologists warn that such materials can lead to a distorted worldview, increase risky behaviors, and impair a child’s ability to form and sustain successful relationships with others as per a study.

Adults must minimize children’s exposure to unwanted substances. Teachers are responsible for protecting their students in school as much as parents are at home. It becomes mandatory for IT admins to deploy MDM solutions and blacklist inappropriate websites to safeguard students against harmful content on the web

4. Minimize the number of potential network vulnerabilities

Schools lack adequate protection for their networks. Why? Number one is the sheer number of users and devices in the network. The second reason is that the users (children) lack the knowledge on how to behave on the Internet. Their knowledge of cybersecurity is either scant or nonexistent, and they have no clue what malware or phishing emails are.

The need for MDM in schools is also driven by the need for cybersecurity. MDM solutions enable students and teachers to use their personal devices without endangering their schools’ networks. With a mobile device management solution, schools can safeguard the fleet of mobile devices being used in the schools from malware, phishing, and intellectual property theft (like compromise or leakage of research papers, essays, lessons, etc.)

MDM simplifies the enforcement of security measures like encryption, app updates, and data backup from an IT standpoint. Furthermore, Remote wiping ensures the safe removal of private and proprietary data in case of theft or loss of devices. The combination of these features minimizes the likelihood of data theft and ensures fast restoration of critical data in the event of loss or compromise.

5. Ensure secure distance learning

The use of MDM at schools has another benefit: it helps to prevent “Zoop bombings” and “Zoom raids”. The cyberattack that happens on platforms like Zoom, which uses video conferencing.

These are recent incidents that are worth mentioning:

One hacker in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, cursed at children and screamed racial slurs during kindergarten orientation.

At Columbus, Georgia, Zoom bombers disrupted a middle school’s online class by using pornography.

When schools are being conducted remotely, educators can still utilize MDM solutions for the enhancement of mobile device security. MDM solutions for schools can drastically contribute to improve the quality of distance learning and assure system stability.

6. Improve and secure classroom communication

With a mobile device management solution, teachers can push educational documents onto students’ mobile devices via the remote content collaboration feature. Learning materials and documents can be delivered directly to students’ devices by the educators so that the additional efforts of students for searching the web and downloading necessary information modules can be avoided.

Schools can also use MDM to facilitate collaboration. Students can exchange documents, images, and presentations safely in a controlled manner such as imposing restrictions to only use native mobile apps for students identity authentication and the usage of cloud, etc. There are minimal chances that students will share malicious files with other students. So, students will not be exposed to the possibility of visiting a scam website and clicking an embedded malicious link.

7. Enable mobile Wi-Fi hotspots via Android phones

Although distance learning is becoming more common across the world, some of the students residing in rural areas still face network connection issues when attending online classes. Many households still lack high-speed internet access, and this is unlikely to improve in the near future.

One of the possible solutions to the problem for the students is to use Android phones as mobile hotspot devices to enable internet connection to laptops and tablets for distance learning.In what ways can MDM for schools help in this use case? Through Android device management, IT admins can adjust the settings of the Android device in a controlled manner. It can help the educational institutes to ensure that students are using their Android phones as hotspot points and not as an entertainment device during online classes.

8. Remotely Troubleshoot device errors faster

Even though technology glitches and system failures are inevitable, distance learning is negatively affected. An inoperable laptop prevents a student from participating in class discussions, completing assignments, and earning exam points.

Naturally, children and their parents will pose inherent challenges, as neither of them may have the knowledge or skill to identify and fix the device downtime issue on their own. How can schools assist students in addressing technical issues and maximizing the benefits of distance learning? In order to provide remote assistance, schools should leverage MDM solutions.

Some MDM solutions available in the market allow the IT admins to remotely cast students’ mobile screens on the MDM dashboard using the remote cast feature. When IT specialists have better insight into the problem, they can find a fast and effective solution to prevent disruptions to online learning.

9. Enable device sharing

In most instances, there aren’t enough mobile devices available in all the schools and with parents to provide all students/children with one to use alone. It becomes prime for educational institutions to implement a system that allows more than one student to share a single device safely.

Profile switch functionality is often included as a feature in MDM solutions. Educational institutions can leverage this feature and provide a way for each student to use unique log-in details to access apps, learning materials, community forums, and assignments. The MDM feature ensures the safety of all the personal data for multiple students, whether there are two, three, or even four separate profiles using the same device.

10. Ensure your school is secure

By having a reliable mobile device management solution in place, educational institutions can rest assured that the student’s BYO devices or schools managed and deployed devices are patched and updated regularly. By doing so, the mobile devices and applications will function as expected, lowering your IT team’s support hours and enhancing the learning experience for your students.

Most of the mobile device management solutions have restriction-based protocols that the IT admins can impose to minimize the risk of device theft, such as the ability to check the time-stamp and last precise location of the devices, and also has the potential to perform a remote wipe in case of data compromisation, leakage or devices reported stolen.

Closing lines…

The importance of MDM to schools in today’s digital world cannot be overemphasized. In addition to improving the in-class and distance learning experience of the students, an effective MDM solution secures the network, limits distractions in the classroom, and can secure the network too. Additionally, they enable educators to improve communication and collaboration within the group, positively affecting students’ satisfaction.

Author Bio:

Ayush Maskara is a Content Writer at Scalefusion. A media science graduate, a photographer, a fiction author, a storyteller, a fiction manuscript editor, and an avid self-help reader, Ayush has been penning the creative wisdom for six years and have stepped into the IT domain for further exploration and staying awake with technological trends across the globe.