Role of MDM for Managing Android Devices in Educational Institutes
The emerging trends and issues have raised the need for digital education systems. During COVID-19, almost all the educational institutes started e-learning for students. Smart devices also play an integral role in management and record keeping. Some educationalists are against the use of smart devices in schools because they believe it causes distractions and students waste their time in unnecessary activities. Moreover, they believe students get easily trapped by online scammers. However, these are serious concerns, and eliminating digital devices from the system is not the solution. Students more actively learn things from interesting videos, images, and other activities than traditional classrooms. So, we need a management system that can control device usage and provide remote monitoring of students’ activities on smart devices for optimal use.
How is MDM influencing education?
With increased cyber threats and the usage of smart devices, mobile device management solutions are becoming a necessity for managing educational devices.
- The educational institutes are now able to enforce focused learning by using various MDM features. App and device management helps them allow only educational apps to run on the devices while blocking access to social media and other apps. They are also able to provide students with effective research by restricting all URLs except educational websites.
- MDM has also enabled seamless distance education effectively through remote screen sharing and control features. Teachers and IT teams can now remotely control student’s devices to troubleshoot issues and provide them with instant support.
- The communication gap between university management, teachers, and students has been covered by ensuring instant communication and collaboration through MDM. MDM has also helped institutes to manage effective group studies with proper monitoring.
- Educational institutes are now empowered enough to manage the system according to the changing trends. Universities with MDM have a secure data-sharing system and can manage it online for uninterrupted access to the data for students.
- MDM solutions have also streamlined the remote teaching process for teachers to assist students and deliver lectures from remote locations to cover the syllabus on time. Teachers can explain the topics better using online videos, graphs, diagrams, and pictures.
Use Cases: MDM in Education
MDM helps to streamline various processes to support educational institutes.
- Classroom management
Smart devices integrated with MDM can ensure productive classroom management. Remote monitoring of devices by teachers can ensure that each student is focused on the lecture. Attendance and reports can be easily managed and accessed by every student.
- Remote troubleshooting
During online lectures, downtime of the teacher or student’s device can create hurdles in delivering lectures. IT teams can remotely access any device and diagnose the issue to troubleshoot it quickly.
- Device sharing
Device sharing is a productive approach to studies. Teachers can share the device screen on student’s devices to share slides. Admins and teachers can also access student devices to support them.
- Security Management
MDM’s key role in educational institutes is security management. Admins can remotely access device cameras and app usage. They can enforce strong password inputs to enable authorized access. They can also whitelist or blacklist malicious and unnecessary apps and websites and can remotely lock down student’s unattended devices and track their locations in emergencies.
Requirements to Choose MDM for Educational Institute
Choosing the right MDM solution is a crucial factor for powerful management and control of student’s devices. Here are the things to consider while choosing the MDM for your educational institute:
- Compatibility
Please ensure that the MDM solution is compatible with the device OS your institute provides to the students and teachers. It helps to streamline the enrollment process and ensures proper functioning.
- Cost Saving
The MDM must have flexible pricing and remote features to minimize maintenance costs. Timely maintenance and remote update of devices also saves much cost.
- Device Management
Please ensure that the MDM solution you choose has adequate features to support device management, like creating groups and multi-level sub-groups, remote lockdown of devices, factory reset, and remote installation or uninstallation of apps.
- Scalability and Customization
MDM solution must be scalable to manage a number of devices as per the needs of the business to minimize costs. It needs to provide customization of security policies to comply with industry standards.
What is AirDroid Business MDM, and how does it help schools?
AirDroid Business is an MDM solution specifically designed to manage and control Android devices. Educational institutes mostly use Android devices due to easy customization. AirDroid Business enables institutes to enroll unlimited devices with different configuration settings for staff and students managed in groups. It offers a free trial to new users for 14 days and then cheaper packages afterward. Admin staff can remotely monitor each device’s activities, like app and data usage. AirDroid Business MDM also enables remote control of devices from a central location.
Important features to support businesses
- Simplified device deployment
AirDroid Business eliminates the traditional time-consuming device deployment process by providing zero-touch enrollment for unlimited device enrollments with pre-configured settings. Admins can select apps and settings that are applied automatically when the device is powered on.
- Remote Monitoring and Control
With AirDroid’s remote monitoring and control feature, school management can remotely monitor device performance to ensure the continuity of devices during school hours. They can check device usage and diagnose issues on enrolled devices to troubleshoot them instantly with minimum costs.
- Kiosk Mode
Educational institutes can launch e-learning apps for students and use AirDroid Business single-app kiosk mode to limit students’ devices to a single e-learning app. Students cannot close this app or use any other device feature when admins enable kiosk mode on their devices. They can also use multi-app kiosk mode to allow access to more than one app.
- Customizable Security policies
AirDroid Business MDM offers customizable security policies to set various authentications like strong password policies and multi-factor authentications. They can also manage Wi-Fi, network, and other device settings to comply with government security standards.
- Device Tracking
The real-time location tracking and Geofencing feature of AirDroid Business helps schools track the devices to ensure they are all in the right places. When a device is lost or stolen, you can easily locate it to remotely lock the device and wipe the data.
- File Management
AirDroid Business MDM also enables administrators to share multiple files on bulk devices simultaneously for better collaboration. Teachers can share their teaching files with the students easily. And the file sharing is encrypted with TLS protocol.
Conclusion
It is vital to use smart devices in educational institutes to ensure enhanced learning capabilities and smart skills in students. They only need to provide a healthy approach for strong management of student’s devices. Using MDM, educational institutes can manage all security concerns remotely to comply with government standards. They can remotely manage device activities, keeping them limited to educational content boundaries. Here is your 14-day free trial for more tips for managing devices in school.