Importance of Classroom Management Software for IT Admins at educational institutes | Faronics Insight

Leveraging a classroom management software which provides robust endpoint management capabilities for IT admins is indispensable today to manage the digitally-enabled education infrastructure. These tools come with a comprehensive set of features for both teachers and IT admins. The admin-oriented features such as hardware/software management, app, and web usage reports, and remote troubleshooting (to name a few) enable IT staff to provide optimized computing environment so that both educators and students can benefit from the institute’s investment on technology.

Let us see how an effective classroom management software can ensure IT-friendly classroom management!

• Total Visibility and Control over Hardware and Software
  
  Depending upon its size, an educational institute can have hundreds of computers deployed in multiple locations inside the campus. Computers in training labs and classrooms may have considerably different configurations depending upon their use. It becomes extremely difficult for IT admins to visit each device physically for checking its configuration settings and system updates. Also, troubleshooting each issue encountered by students during the classes by physically visiting the workstations is not just time-consuming, but it also disrupts the ongoing session and slows down the entire process of imparting and consuming knowledge.
  
  The tech-control panel of a classroom computer management software helps IT admins to view and access the system configuration of all workstations with just a click. A robust school lab management software features provide various filters and even a sort view as per the requirement of the IT admins. For instance, an IT admin can identify the computers running on a particular operating system, those having particular applications installed, and so on.
  
• Control Over application and Web AccessibilityProvision of unrestricted access to relevant resources while eliminating the scope of web misuse is a major challenge faced by digital classrooms today. A classroom management software empowers IT admins to configure and customize accessibility to various digital resources to ensure that the learning experience is not affected due to usage restrictions. By implementing the student monitoring software, IT admins can ensure that students’ connect only to the permitted school networks, access the approved websites and media, and use relevant applications. This kind of comprehensive monitoring and control highlights the significance of a robust classroom management software for educational institutes.
  
  
• Remote Control and Assistance
  
  The ability to remotely control a device is one of the greatest advantages offered by a classroom computer management software. In every educational institute, a computer is used by students for a range of activities. Even instructors’ workstations, though accessible only to teachers, is constantly used for other functions, unrelated to the curriculum. As a result, system-related issues pop up and IT needs to resolve each case manually. This often leads to piling-up of service tickets.
  A classroom management software enables IT team members to have complete control over students’ computers activities. Mouse and keyboard of students can be accessed and controlled without leaving the admin office. Needless to mention, this allows IT to resolve issues in minutes, which otherwise, would have taken hours or days to complete. Visiting every workstation physically and troubleshooting is clearly not the best way to deal with the issues commonly encountered in institutes. The remote access feature makes computer maintenance quite a manageable task. This feature is also useful for teachers as they can receive expert assistance in case a software function is difficult to comprehend.  
• Health and Security status of the systems
  
  Keeping firewalls and other security solutions up-to-date on all the computers in the campus is a routine task for IT admins. Also, keeping the system settings updated is extremely difficult as students and teachers often make changes to the settings to suit their requirement.
  
  A classroom management software aids here as it also acts as a centralized management platform for IT administrators. It allows authorities to monitor whether the firewalls are updated and active on all the devices. Using the school computer lab management software, IT admins can define a ‘Health Status’ for the computers and can enable notifications to track which configured categories and not matching the health definition.
  
  
• Efficient Power Utilization
  
  Besides all the workstations in the entire campus, the IT infrastructure of schools and colleges often includes servers, routers, and other IT equipment. That is why electricity bills are a major overhead for all the educational institutes. Managing the power consumption of computers is essential to keep the OpEx within budget. However, with hundreds of devices in a campus, power optimization cannot be expected as students are likely to forget switching off the devices or putting them on sleep mode after use.
  
  The power management capability of a classroom management software becomes effective for this purpose. It enables the in-campus IT staff to remotely change the power settings on both educator and student devices. Systems can be scheduled to shutdown, restart or hibernate corresponding to the class schedules. This ensures that students’ and teachers’ time is not wasted in starting the computers nor are the devices left switched on after use.
  
  There are a number of classroom management software available in the market, each claiming to be the best in class. Hence, selecting a comprehensive one that meets all the computer lab management requirements could be a challenge. Creating a list of challenges and analyzing the software features against that list is helpful in identifying the best option. One of the preferred classroom management solutions is Faronics Insight which has been adopted by various educational institutes. The software comes with both teacher console and tech console to ensure that campus’ IT infrastructure is being used efficiently and effectively.